Poems & Lyrics
by Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
*Also the lyric to a song
1. Remember You?*
2. Dependable
3. My House Lives
4. Paler and Paler
5. No Infant Mine
6. Sirens
7. Both Halves8. Scarred Wrists
9. I
10. Evidence*
11. Song
12. Sonnet II … The Wall
13. The Spending
14. Were I To Hate
15. My Turn
16. Like An Honored Guest*
17. If There Is One
18. Tattoo
19. I Belong To Me Now
20. Hummingbird
26. My Encore*
27. Friends*
28. Were I To Hate
29. If Not Now, When?*
30. So Near, but not There Yet
31. Tribute to Mabel Mercer*
32. Catching the Moment*
33. This Morning Came and
Brought Me Hope
34. Treble Sounds
35. Sonnet IX ... Poor Thing
36. Waiting in the Wings*
37. Walk on the Lea
38. Careful
39. The Helga Collection
40. On Arranging
41. If You Were Gone
42. Enough
43. Broken
Remember You?
No.
You will never have
left my thoughts
long enough
to require
remembering.
Dependable as calm oceans
Turn to raging waves -
Sure as their recurring
Serenity -
Life comes pounding
Sturdy cliffs into finest
Sands,
Sands that welcome
Bare feet.
For Savannah 2018
Howling winds beat against the windows of my room.
I curl in warmth and smile against a cold that can't come in.
My house lives and breathes with wooden lungs.
And lying all alone and quiet in this dark,
I hear the sounds of movement.
Almost silently, the creaks and thuds and bumps
remind me of surrounding strength,
adjusting as it must.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
January 17, 2012
Paler and paler,
the light from the sun
comes through my window to me.
Fading and fading,
the ink from my pen
grows even harder to see.
Searching and searching,
I rise from my chair,
breaking the spell of the day.
Fumbling and stumbling
In darkness, I fall,
losing what I had to say.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
May 29, 2017
No infant mine to nurse at breast
Or hear my lullaby,
She stands full grown in mind and soul –
Forgets when she was shy,
At age of five, and was to sing
A duet song with me.
She sang her part and great applause
Broke out and I could see
I should not sing at all that day –
Just play the keys and know
I’d seen her drink that moment down
And savor Spotlight’s glow.
We knew, we two, that there and then –
Through Audience we learned –
What she had caused upon that stage
Was proof she’d been affirmed.
How skillfully she honed her gift
And walked hard paths to Now.
How carefully she tuned the chords –
Let Grace direct each bow.
How willfully, in her success
And generosity,
She turns it ‘round and scatters hope
To nourish even me.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
For Kathleen on her birthday
London, October 31, 2013
Not Since the sirens came for me
have I dismissed their wail.
Until that awful day I was
most often prone to fail
to get beyond relief that I
and mine were safe and well.
How could compassion not have stirred -
not caused my soul to swell
in grief for others in despair?
Must screaming sirens come
to shake and wake a part of me
that stubbornly grows numb?
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
May 2017
Going through some old journals today, the anniversary of your
parent's 67th wedding anniversary,
I found something I wanted to share with you, our dear children:
I guess I should call this "Both Halves, Journal 2010".
Sunday afternoon, September 12, 2010
Top of a Vian mountain, where Jim's ashes will be placed with mine:
I linger here a while,
As women do
After their mates have gone.
They go first - our men -
Most often, they go first,
Leaving us to be both halves
Of the One we were.
And, as we feared,
We cannot.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
September 2014
She sits next to me in our writing class -
The girl of prolific stories -
The girl with scarred wrists.
Inside my head, I say to her:
Silently, drenched in a bloody stream of pain,
You reached the dam
Depression built.
Words broke through and carried you
On ink stained waves, past
Sodden lethal substances and
Sunken razor blades.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
September 10, 1997
I
I seem to think most often of myself.
I don't recall I’ve known another way.
I'm not the sort one places on the shelf.
I'm first on the agenda every day.
Incredibly, the selfless people are,
(I wonder, but they do appear to be,)
In spite of all, the happiest by far...
I guess I'll try; it might be best for me.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
EVIDENCE
I don't understand love,
but since I am in love with you,
when you excel,
I share your accolades.
When you fail,
your failure belongs to me.
When you burst with joy,
my happiness overflows.
And when a tear burns your cheek,
I brush it away from mine.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
For Jim
SONG
A song is not for one to own,
although sometimes the cost
to give it life
is dear.
Pain, like joy,
can stir the heart
to rise and fall
in rhyme and tune.
But knowing it is moving free
on waves of sound
is payment full
to one who gives it birth,
for those who hear
will sing.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
SONNET II
I walked along at even pace for me.
The pebbled path was not too rough, I found.
But just beyond a bend I soon could see
A wall that blocked my course, with no way 'round!
At once I sought to scale the rugged steep -
To grasp each stony crag of barrier tall -
And struggled eVry little gain to keep,
Till, sinews aching, Zeal and I did fall.
What mason mad would build upon that lane,
To hinder such as I from passing through?
Oh, who would think to bring about the pain
Of flesh, of soul, of spirit that I knew?
I searched and low found, etched upon a stone,
The culprit's name, and gasped to read my own.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
Devil's Den
Summer of 1973
THE SPENDING
The candle winks,
brightens and fades again.
Tallow falls like tears along its sides
and leaves behind raised traces
of the journey down.
How long until the glow
is gone
and darkness falls?
No matter.. .if it shines
and sputters to the finish.
And all the wax,
evry bit of wick
is spent.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
Were I to hate, I’d hate the setting sun –
the darkness closing around my day –
the weariness that forces me to sleep
and rob me of what I have yet to say.
Ashamed, I watch as others view in awe
the vibrant colors of the fading sky.
In gratitude, they lie at last to rest.
In anger, I resist and wonder why.
How dare it slip so quickly past the edge
when I’m not done with all I want to do?
How wrong to quit its strong sustaining pow’r
and take away my eyes to see it through.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
August 16, 2016
My Turn
So slow – this turn of mine.
And yet I wait in patience,
with no desire to have it come.
Too dear, this path I walk today –
too fresh the air that cools my face.
I seem to hold and flip a braided rope,
as others skip,
and wonder who it is that holds the other end…
the one who calls our names.
I know them all, these friends who come to play.
They take their cues - then fall away.
It comes sneaking up – my turn.
Almost unnoticed in
the act of re-filling of my daily pillbox –
the replacing of worn out underwear –
the mending of the roof –
the paying of last year’s taxes –
the increasing need of rest.
Like an hourglass,
whose trickling sands measure the passage of time,
I feel the granules flowing past
(somehow less slowly now)
towards a turn for me.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
August 20, 2012
Like an honored guest, slipping away too soon,
Time is breaking my heart.
As the morning sun finally falls to moon,
Time just rips me apart.
For he simply wants to move
with the ticking of the clock.
It’s as if he needs to prove
that he certainly cannot
possibly stop for me!
Though I plead for him to stay -
linger here a little while -
he replies it’s not his way -
says it’s really not his style
and that he must be free!
Like an honored guest, slipping away too soon, Time is breaking my heart.
Give me a day!
Give me an hour!
Give me a moment more!
There’s much to do!
So little spoken!
Still he runs through that door!
Like an honored guest, slipping away too soon, Time is breaking my heart.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
April 17, 2013
IF THERE IS ONE
Walking from my piano, I say what I always say when I’ve finished a song:
“Best song I’ve ever written!”
But each time I want to do it better when I write my next song…if there is one.
I reason that with the writing of every song, I will learn something to help me find a better lyric, or hear a fresher harmony.
Laying down my pen, I say what I always say when I’ve finished a poem:
“Best poem I’ve ever written!”
But each time I want to do it better when I write my next poem…if there is one.
I hope that with the writing of every poem, I will learn something about searching for deeper concepts or conjuring words that best express the thoughts.
I need to feel that I’m getting better. I must assume that what I’m struggling to create will be improved over my last effort, and that the trying, the failing, the accepting or discarding, will help me accomplish my goal. I desperately want to be more prepared for the coming chance…if there is one.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
September 18, 2014
I see a tattoo on the arm that hangs out
of the car that has stopped next to mine.
I wonder what that man was thinking about
to commit of himself with a sign
that cannot be washed off and won’t be erased
when the folks all around call it strange.
I ponder if prior to the act he had faced
that opinions are subject to change.
I can’t read the letters that must be a name,
for encircling the work is a heart.
He’ll have to find someone whose name is the same
if (and heaven forbid) they should part!
But I must admire him, for I’m seldom sure…
my decisions bring questions, I find.
He races away and I’m left to endure
that I never can make up my mind.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
May 7, 1991
I belong to me now.
Folks lament; “She is all alone.”
But I’m never lonely,
I’m just simply not one to own.
I have never walked here
where the path appears wild and strange.
Still I’ll stumble forward
Through a dark and unwelcome change.
I will be returning,
for there’s need to pass through this way.
And I’ll grow familiar
with the steps that I take each day.
There will be decisions
that were never called mine to make.
They’ve been well decided
and designed for only my sake.
Being left without him,
I will not be an anguished soul,
or forever grieving
in the thought that I’m less than whole.
When I search for answers
to the questions I’ll surely find,
I’ll converse with me and
will continuously change my mind.
I will need his laughter
and the warmth of his dear embrace.
I will miss his presence
and the longing upon his face.
But I’ll hear the calling
of the birds that he loved in flight
and recall he told me
he’d be near as they flew from sight.
There’ll be peace in silence
and contentment in quiet things
that can hum in rhythm
and allow me a song that sings.
Till breath’s gone, I’m breathing
and responding to what will be.
In this space, I’m dwelling.
And while here, I belong to me.
Elizabeth Sullivan
February 14, 2017
…sitting quite still, and surrounded by plants and blossoms on my back porch, I welcomed my visitor…
Today a hummingbird
Hummed into my ear.
And with tiny, frenetic wings,
He fanned my face.
Finding me no nectar,
He soon backward flew.
I could not give the sustenance
He gave to me.
Elizabeth Sullivan
October 8, 2018
A TIME TO KILL
In nourishing the poison tree,
I’d feel its thorns brush over me.
And Hatred’s venom soon would fill
The one who should have known to kill.
With each new branch old fruit is grown
That hides the seed which will be sown
In endless cycles, giving breath
To Evil’s birth and Living’s death.
Elizabeth Sullivan
THE HANDS OF RODIN
Rodin shaped and cast them
small enough to fit into his pockets.
Then like babies who hide
little things in their mouths
for the tongue to peruse,
he carried them in darkness –
touching each curve and line,
every gesture of calm or distress –
the gamut of anger to love.
And before he knew what
Balzac’s mouth and eyes would say,
he felt it through fingertips.
Elizabeth Sullivan
November 2, 1998
ANGEL, YOU CAN FLY!*
Tears filling your eyes are brimming over into mine.
Still I know your heart and in only a little time you will
Soar above it all, Angel you can fly! You can do it! Soar!
Spread your wings and catch the current of the sky and fly!
Play among the clouds. Play among the clouds,
Even though the clouds be dark and stormy.
Soar above it all, Angel you can fly! You can do it! Soar!
Spread your wings and catch the current of the sky and fly! And
Rise above the mire of disappointment.
See beyond the cruel and the vain.
Know without a doubt the joy that’s hidden
Will come shining through the pain and
Soar above it all, Angel you can fly! You can do it!
Spread your wings and catch the current of the sky and
Play among the clouds. Circle in the sky. Play among the clouds and fly!
Angel you can fly! Circle in the sky and fly!
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
June, 2002
There is an attic -
Dark and vast -
Where manuscripts are kept,
If they are kept...
A place where dust settles –
Where yellowing and crumbling occurs –
Where words and notes,
Carefully phrased and penned,
Lie unread.
There
Decaying hope lingers to grieve
For those who searched for wisdom to express
In fresh and lovely ways,
Then feigned;
“It doesn’t matter if it is read. It’s just something I must do.”
But, of course, it did.
It does matter.
Elizabeth Sullivan
January 1, 1991
SOMEONE,
whose name I could not call,
called me
from deep inside.
And though the presence was a part of
me,
still it was wholly other.
And I,
who yearned to answer,
groped in discontent.
But as a hand imprints a likeness
pressing paper to a sculpted stone,
so rubbed and bumped
my heart along its sides
until I knew the form,
that only spirit fills,
is God.
Elizabeth Sullivan
1996
MY ENCORE
You should have heard my encore. You should have heard my song.
If you’d have heard my encore – if only you’d have heard my song –
you never would have left me standing there
in the spotlight all alone.
You never would have left me standing there
in the spotlight all alone.
I wrote each word for you and the melody was yours alone.
Ev’rything I sang was true. Ev’ry phrase was there for you to own.
My rhythms made you smile. You kept listening to what I’d say.
You were happy for a while, but at last I felt you stray away.
You should have heard my encore. You should have heard my song.
If you’d have heard my encore – if only you had heard my song –
you never would have left me standing there
In the spotlight all alone.
You never would have left me standing there
In the spotlight all alone.
You would have shouted “Encore!”
You would have wanted much more! “Brava!” “Encore!”
Elizabeth Sullivan
May, 2017
FRIENDS
Verse
Not much lasts any longer.
It all fades like leaves that blow away.
And like the slowly dying ember,
The night will come to take the day.
We shape the sand into our castles.
They get swept away with the tide.
And all around us there are lovers
No longer walking side by side. But
First Chorus
Friends, forever friends,
We’ll be together, you and I.
Friends, good old friends,
Though storms may chase away our sunny sky.
Friends, forever friends,
After all that we’ve been through, you for me and me for you,
We will be friends, enduring friends, forever friends.
Second Chorus
We’re forever friends,
We’ll share our joys and all our tears.
We’re enduring friends,
You’ll always seem the same, throughout the years.
Friends, forever friends,
After all that we’ve been through, you for me and me for you,
We will be friends, enduring friends, forever friends.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
1993
Dedicated to Martha Coyle Edwards, CHHS best friend
IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
I procrastinate, and I really hate to waste
all the time it takes deciding what to do.
As I hesitate – hang around and wait –
there’s a question I am trying to think through…
If not now, when? When have the signs ever been so clear?
And if not here, where? Where is there a finer place
in all of earth or space than here?
Why should I miss certain bliss, not following my heart?
And shall I try to deny this is the perfect time and place to start?
If not here, where? If not this moment, how?
How will I ever find a better time than now?
If not here, Where? If not this moment, how?”
How will I ever find a more wonderful time to begin than now?
(Children join soloist)
If not here, where? If not this moment, how?
How will we ever find a more wonderful time to begin than now?
(Each child sings “than now” while soloist continues to hold “now.”)
All sing “Now!”
Elizabeth Sullivan
December 23, 1996
SO NEAR, BUT NOT THERE YET
Like one who is lost in a city,
I’m confused by the streets and the signs –
the reds and the greens and the cautions
and the people that leave me behind.
I search for that one destination –
the elusive one I cannot see.
Beyond ev’ry bend and each corner,
is an end of the journey for me.
So near, but not there yet.
So close, yet so far.
Still I know I will find where you are.
Where you are when you’re dreaming,
is the place I would be
For I would be the vision of your mind.
So close, but not there yet.
So near, but too far.
Still I know I will find where you are.
Where you are when you’re longing,
is the place I would be
for I would be the wish within your heart.
So near, but not there yet.
So close, but too far.
Still I know I will find where you are.
Elizabeth Sullivan
September 27, 2007
Tribute to Mabel Mercer
Close your eyes. Listen.
Close your eyes. Hear
all the stories she told us when she’d sing.
Close your eyes. See her.
Close your eyes. Know
all the ways she taught us how to sing. Then,
as long as we sing, she will sing.
As long as we sing, we’ll remember
all the many songs she knew so well
and understood, as no one ever could before.
As long as we live with the words
until we know what they mean -
as long as we reach down deep inside
to feel the joy – to feel the pain they bring -
as long as we touch another’s heart
the way she knew just how to do –
as long as we sing, she’ll be singing too.
As long as we sing, she’ll be singing too.
Elizabeth Sullivan
Catching the Moment
I’m catching the moment and stashing it away
from the hands of a clock that doesn’t want it to stay.
I’m hanging on to a feeling and I simply refuse
to let Time take from me what I don’t want to lose;
Out of nowhere it happened, this serendipity!
Out of nothing something came, especially for me.
And from somewhere, just like magic, I suddenly could see;
I must somehow find a way to always be;
Catching the moment and stashing it away
from the hands of a clock that doesn’t want it to stay.
I’m hanging on to a feeling and I simply refuse
to let Time take from me what I don’t want to lose;
Out of nowhere it happened, this serendipity!
Out of nothing something came, especially for me.
And from somewhere, just like magic, I suddenly could see;
I must somehow find a way to always be;
Catching the moment, stashing it away, catching the moment!
Elizabeth Sullivan
This Morning Came and Brought Me Hope
This morning came and brought me hope
that surely now the crest of grief
had passed and found a downward slope
toward a place of calm relief.
But I was wrong to think it so.
Lingering, the sobs refuse to go.
Undaunted sorrow still defies –
remains in spite of all I do.
I see his dark and searching eyes –
lament that they are closed and through
with looking well at what he’d find,
shaping it anew within his mind.
I touch his strong and wondrous hands
and weep because they’ll work no more
to follow his own brilliant plans
for living on a rocky shore.
It’s steel, it’s glass with redwood beams
“Leaning to the lake” – his place for dreams
that never were for him alone.
He wanted loved ones gathered where
They’d show more love than they had shown.
His wish was just to see them there
enjoying water’s clean caress -
losing all their cares and stress.
His time cut short, he pled for more
to finish visions he’d begun.
He craved the strength he’d need before
his final, finest work was done.
The days sped by, and loss was feared.
Gratefully, the answer soon appeared.
A builder nephew came to gain
a sense of schemes, as yet undrawn.
A doctor brother blocked the pain
of Death, and wept when Life was gone.
A grieving mother wipes her eyes –
carries her lost child until she dies.
Danny Kevin Sullivan Born September 14, 1955 Died July 29, 2017
The poem by his mother, Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan October 11, 2017
Treble Sounds
This rhyme is for the women who
felt rhyme but could not write.
This thought is for the ones who knew
and suffered through the night
of ignorance that cast them as
the gender less endowed –
for loveliness through time that has been
lost or not allowed.
This song sings measured notes of pain
In treble sounds until
It brings to rest what can remain
of wrongs that linger still.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
Unspoken
Sometimes
words aren’t enough.
Sometimes
Silence is best.
Some times
cry out for a simple
quiet
embrace.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
SONNET IX
Poor thing, I thought, and only glanced her way.
I’d not make fun of her for looking so,
But think of something full of joy and say
It for her ears that somehow she may know
(Although she wore a worried, harried look,)
There surely must be something to rejoice!
And in her wrinkled robe (the peek I took
Revealed) I hoped there was an inner voice
To guide her through the trouble of her day.
I came to doubt such miracles could be.
But sense of humor she at last displayed,
For as I moved, she moved and mimicked me.
On closer look I winced, in horror saw
She had no life – was but a mirrored wall.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
WAITING IN THE WINGS
Waiting in the wings -
I’m just waiting in the wings,
shivering and lis’ning all alone,
for my curtain call.
I have learned my ev’ry line –
oh, I hope I’ve learned my lines,
and I want to walk out on that stage and
give the crowd my all!
I’ve felt like this before -
known fears like this before,
still I keep coming back again for more!
‘Cause when I get it right, and I know I got it right,
There’s a joy I can’t describe…a longing that is deep inside.
(Repeat from beginning)
Waiting in the wings,
I’m just waiting in the wings,
shivering and lis’ning all alone
for my curtain call.
Words and music by
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan, 2019
WALK ON THE LEA
This morning Roly Poly Bug
came out to walk the lea.
He formed an armored ball to shrug –
ignore the likes of me.
The Sycamore, so full of seed
in fluffs of white, could send
new life to Earth. But she would need
the helping gusts of Wind.
And he accommodated her.
He always does in May.
The swirling earth and skies in blur
made promises today.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan, May 11, 1989
CAREFUL
I was careful not to tell a widow,
“I understand,”
until my husband died.
Nor did I say to a grieving mother,
“I feel your pain,”
until I lost my son.
I would not share with the suffering old,
“I empathize,”
until my time grew short.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
January 29, 2020
THE HELGA COLLECTION
I finish my chores – walk alone beside the Brandywine River to the old
fieldstone buildings… his home, his studio, and his gristmill, whose
sturdy wooden door stands open for me.
Passing the massive, silent grinding stones and waterwheel,
I climb stairs, push up a hinged barrier to the second floor and see,
hanging or leaning against the walls and posts,
his paintings, his drawings – his works in tempera, watercolor and
drybrush... sixty-seven of them. I count slowly, lingering on each one.
All are framed and ready to view.
All are of me.
“Art to me is seeing,” he says. He believes an artist must use eyes as
well as emotion.
He sees my hair shining and paints my eyes resigned –
my mouth stoic… almost always.
I sit, stand or lie unclothed on white sheets.
He arranges my long, braided hair, or loosens it over my breasts –
adjusts my face or hips to catch the light.
He puts flowers in my hair and has me move through grassy fields.
Placing my hand to shade my eyes, he lays me on autumn leaves.
In winter he wraps me in sheepskin.
I walk through snow for him.
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
English 3133, University of Oklahoma 1998 - October, 2020
Painting: Andrew Wyeth
ON ARRANGING
I placed the flowers in a vase
and thought of how it is so strange
that it’s not just what’s put within,
but what’s withheld that helps arrange
the lovely thing I would create.
Yet since each blossom that I see
appears too beautiful to waste,
to use them all seems right to me.
And yielding to that whim, I lose
the beauty of design, no doubt.
I’d like to learn to pick, to choose.
I must discern what to leave out!
Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan
March 19, 1988
If you were gone, how could I fill
the emptiness you’d leave in me?
Yours is a light that floods the soul –
a glow that helps me see a path
to where I would be honor bound.
If you were gone, I’d stumble on
and lean upon the sturdy staff
you’ve carved throughout the years for me.
Elizabeth Sullivan
For Suzanne
January 22, 2021
Communion can be near it seems
and yet we sense the task
to coax it with a million schemes -
themselves too much to ask.
To meld our souls to souls we strive.
We seek the common ground
on which we could at last, arrive.
But reaching, we’ll have found
that minds in minds are never clasped.
We will by trial learn
that thoughts, in fullness, are not grasped.
It is enough to yearn.
Elizabeth Sullivan
2020
Broken things can sometimes be made whole.
But some can never be.
Shattered hearts might mend and save the soul
from scars we cannot see.
Better still to hold our treasures near
and guard against their fall.
Jagged edges might not disappear –
could not be healed at all.
Elizabeth Sullivan
April 2021