Quiet Sheba: Volume Ii

By Elizabeth Clayton

Ebbing and tiding comprise one of the strongest and objective, real, constructs that help to keep our lives in place, today, as certainly as ever, the despair, the dark, drifting into lighter spaces most often being my fare during the first, into the second portion of my period of greatest lamentations. However, time and intervening factors moderated much of the loss I perceived and wept into bitterly. Seasons, as does Volume II, keep their rhythms, similarly the everyday routines of life, so that in likeso fashion, vocabulary and themes are akin to those first, but there is a slow progression to the outward, toward light, praise, and acknowledging.
Memory, softly- gently plodding, if sometimes grievously, slowly became an anchor rather than a burden, and the nature of my illness allowed friends to support more readily. Still, the hours, days, and nights processed, wandered, waited, and mourned in silence, if less often; beauty remained my constant medicinal choice, as has ever meditations, through our paths of deepest, most realization- the journey is the mountaintop, step by step; it is a giving experience, which has not instance of occurring at, or all, most times, observant.
And so the rose: volume II is a record of holding, that lost while reaching, desperately, back to where I once was, ironically walking into it each day. The entire process continuing, a daily self-actualization, to dress with a sixties expression.
The words of this period describe grief, with hope, while not, consciously, benefiting from it; into loss with coming gratitude, and some suggestion of certainty began to enter, if that not of my choice. Semantics make possible the life of sentiment, and volume II of Quiet Sheba shows the emerging of this lovely, if serrated of this truly, real phenomenon. Ebbing and tiding comprise one of the strongest and objective, real, constructs that help to keep our lives in place, today, as certainly as ever, the despair, the dark, drifting into lighter spaces most often being my fare during the first, into the second portion of my period of greatest lamentations. However, time and intervening factors moderated much of the loss I perceived and wept into bitterly. Seasons, as does Volume II, keep their rhythms, similarly the everyday routines of life, so that in likeso fashion, vocabulary and themes are akin to those first, but there is a slow progression to the outward, toward light, praise, and acknowledging.
Memory, softly- gently plodding, if sometimes grievously, slowly became an anchor rather than a burden, and the nature of my illness allowed friends to support more readily. Still, the hours, days, and nights processed, wandered, waited, and mourned in silence, if less often; beauty remained my constant medicinal choice, as has ever meditations, through our paths of deepest, most realization- the journey is the mountaintop, step by step; it is a giving experience, which has not instance of occurring at, or all, most times, observant.
And so the rose: volume II is a record of holding, that lost while reaching, desperately, back to where I once was, ironically walking into it each day. The entire process continuing, a daily self-actualization, to dress with a sixties expression.
The words of this period describe grief, with hope, while not, consciously, benefiting from it; into loss with coming gratitude, and some suggestion of certainty began to enter, if that not of my choice. Semantics make possible the life of sentiment, and volume II of Quiet Sheba shows the emerging of this lovely, if serrated of this truly, real phenomenon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Dec 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490768441

Elizabeth Clayton

Elizabeth Clayton is a retired college and university professor in fields of Psychology and Literature. Since retirement, she has written almost daily and has produced twenty-three works, primarily poetry. She has received numerous commendations including membership in Sigma Kappa Delta, nominations for the Eric Hoffer award, and representation at numerous world book fairs. In addition, she has received several U S Review recommendations. She has also received several Golden Seal of Excellence Awards by her publisher. Her first work was I, Elizabeth which dealt with her struggles with Bipolar illness and her most recent work was published in early 2019, a review in poetry of the fable/myth of the White Hart. Other outstanding titles are Scarlet Flow, Quiet Sheba (a trilogy), We Lesser Gods, and Addendum, and The Kept Ecclesia of Agatha Moi. She lives alone in her country home near Jackson, Mississippi. In 2018 a large volume of poetry was published, The Kept Eclessia of Agatha Moi, and her most recent work, a review of the myth\fable of the white hart, Jason’s Pause, was published in early 2019.

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Copyright 2016 Elizabeth Clayton.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-6845-8 (sc)

            978-1-4907-6844-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014915903

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Trafford rev. 12/30/2015

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Contents

Quiet Sheba Volumes II & III: Introductory Gestalt

Preface

Expository, Sister Missive

Elizabeth Afterthought

An Essential Addendum:

The Eastern Wisdom Motif

The Lamentations Into Redemption

Nature

Unheard Sounds

Deep Rose

A Sleep

Close Conclusion

The Assuaging

The Plenty

The Born of Morning

Morning

The Drawing

Rubied Fancy

Lighted Amusement

The Moment of the Rose

Part-Song

Moonrose

Moonlight Healing

Return

Finding Purpose

le Jour Renaissance

Seeming Day

Will and Tense

Remontant Knowings

Intimations On A Death

Morning Gold

Mania Jubilate

The Arranging

My Gold Side

Goodbyes

The Nightbird

Solitude

Homecoming

Poorly Arranged

Before Amens

Seasonal Romance

Leftover Beauty

Restatement

Paganini And Me

Winter Grey

Winter Afternoon

Nature’s Verse

The Sweep

Moonfall

Full Pockets

Locus

Nightship

The Joy

The Hermit’s Coupled Truth

Grande Familiarity

The Giving Back

Elizabeth’s Tunic

Quiet Waiting

Wisdom’s Grief

What Choice?

Ah, Dolls

The Outer Round

Wisdoms

Adolescent Wisdom

The Echo

Nylon Trees

The Pardon

Constant Spirit

The Gathering

Of Men and Circumstance

Unto Venice

Word Colors

This Time

Newness

Baggage

Golden Warranty

The Silent Train

Reminding Rose

Song Cycle

New Bloom

To Night

Prayer

The Accounting

The Vision

At Table

Small Conversation

The Enjoinment

The Kingship

Part-Song

Repertoire

The Wounding

In Adam’s Table

My Abundance

The Jessie Flower

Unworthy Gold

The Preface

Golden Bending

—In Absence

Lessened More

Tin Circle

The Plenty

Humble Power

Day Flower

Yesterday’s Wanting

The Half

The Anticipatory Sting

The First Season

Purger Complete

The Abomination

In Season

It Will Not Matter

Without Harbour

Sweet Flesh

A Joseph

Dark Moons

A Wisdom

The String Image

Beyond False Dawn

Stone Becoming

The Singing

The True Coming

Softened Night

Humble Rubaiyat

Of Men and Circumstance

Reaching Shadows

Evernow

Jubilation Gold

Quiet Sheba Volumes II & III: Introductory Gestalt

In sorrow, the devastating beauty which is the plumb line ingredient to life, and its players – these take, certain, their portion. We, in its thrusting upon us, accept, on some part, to struggle for balance, and, without exception, accept, in our own fashion – with struggle, or without.

Particulars are, and are not, so important – only to say that I was left, first, in these verses, of this second volume, in great need of comfort, support – on many fronts - and understanding, with at least some acceptance of myself, emerging, out all of the years with Dr. Sutton, and the crisis, then, at his untimely death, in which I found myself; in this afterwards – the verses of the second volume – are darker, so with falling into continuing, long; the circumstance of my family, in their complete absence, was almost intolerable. But after almost five years, my leg did heal, and I, in my solitude and reactive aggressiveness – if at times softly contemplative thought – I found the hours, into days and years, a time of repressing the full of my soul, a pensive source of reflecting as is found, often, in others who are not easily able to negotiate with heavy loss. There is always hope – if widening and being fulfilled, only portending, but the scar of the tear, its lengthy, incomplete healing – the illness which could not be bested – all are evident in the verses of Quiet Sheba II, the repression, with strength out hard pain – which, if with small confidence, itself, strengthens its own – achieving.

Subjects, vocabulary, and former components of style continue from those of Volume I. The miniatures (of oil and acrylic, some on glass), and paintings which appoint this portion of the record, came about in other troubled times – many, later – all of which did not allow my usual expressions – being in bed, and unable to manage large canvases; these appear in clever varieties of the diminutive, while others are simple miniatures as background to fine, hand pressed pieces of flora in clay or, in company with other selected, larger paintings of oil on canvas, showing as abstracts in Volume III, color of course, as it works with movement, in subordinate fashion, bringing the theme. With the third volume, wisdom, with insight, is bound about by pain, but it emerges as the light of stability, allowing the comfort, the peace of which thought is in constant search, this press yielding a beauty that is ultimately enough – the final exchange for one’s place at the table of the feast of life.

Elizabeth

May 23, 2015

Preface

The absent are soon forgotten. This line is given to a minor character in the well-known play by Ibsen, A Doll’s House - a physician who has an illness, unknown to the reader, makes that statement several times but he knows this he is near death. It is a somber statement because it suggests truth. When I published Quiet Sheba in September, 2014, I was writing, collecting with explanations, of a time I did not want to be forgotten- in my personal life. It was a sad time, lonely, contemplative, but a rewarding time, when all sorted out- sitting with myself, removing day or often, surrounding negative feelings with pleasant reflections. There was often examination, uncommonly marked in the thorough revealing or purposely reviewed past, and piercing, both positively and negatively; and, as much - gratitude for the beauty that the wealth of life can gift; these kept me more than six years of potentially unbearable circumstances. Alongside these gifts of thought, in almost complete solitude, the other side, the aversive did enter frequently: doubt, regret, loss – all that accompany the reality of a life, examined, through reflection. We all hope for a good death, and How many times will I die? are thoughts found in the margins of a great many of my writing notebooks, indicating, perhaps, the gravity of the subject of Ibsen’s character’s repeated comment, as well as my own.

Much can be said in six years of pain, it vacillating with hope; and my project has reached now a second volume and final a third. In truth, many of the verses are worthy, stylistically or in theme, but there is a great lacking, a deficiency when considering the whole of subject. However the evaluation, these verses are an attempt, collectively, to record my emotional pain and praise during this time in my life.

In this second volume, many themes are repeated, perhaps, somewhat more schooled than earlier compositions, but, as a whole, darker, full of doubt and despair since my progress had become slow, physically, with set backs unexpected and I realized the passage of time was not still, that I found myself being forgotten, with grief indescribable, by my family. I was not angry- I could have benefited by it, igniting activity– in truth, I was only facing a reality of life, for which I was neither prepared nor expecting.

I did not, could not see, most often, the positives in each day, and the poetry of these years, as they processed, manifested a desperate catharsis of this need – life without beauty and hope,