before you know hope,
you must know darkness.
— what will you do with this gift?
© Liezel Graham 2019.
Photography by Annie Spratt.
Tag: Joy
the woman who laughed in colour.
today i saw a woman
.
in an orange jumper
and
a red floral skirt
.
creased
.
from all the living she had already done by
noon
.
brown hair unbrushed
.
rebelliously
wild
.
and when she smiled at me
the soft skin around her eyes
showed me how much
she loves to laugh
in colour
.
at life
.
a history lesson in joy
.
and for a moment she was
the most beautiful thing that
i had ever seen, and
.
i wonder if she knows this
when she looks at herself
in the mirror at night.
.
— the woman who laughed in colour.
.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
.
Photography by Kate Kozyrka.
.
Today at the library I saw a woman in a wrinkled, rumpled outfit, no make-up and with her hair unbrushed and a little wild, but when she smiled at me she lit the room up, and her smile was like an explosion of colour, and I hope she knows just how beautiful she is, and how her face spoke of her love for life, and it was a pure, intoxicating thing to witness.
.
liezel
courage.
i would like to say that
i look for beauty
everywhere
i go.
that i see it in the rebellious pout
of an old woman’s lips,
a slash of red
life owes her nothing.
has taken much
given more
she knows this truth
that it will all end at some point.
it will come to a sudden stop.
but
not
yet.
that will be me some day,
i say.
and i mean it.
and when i saw a young woman in costa,
freshly mothered
feeding her baby.
breast in tiny mouth
where everyone
could see,
but nobody was bothered
by a hunger being stilled
in their company.
such a quiet loveliness.
and that was me,
i say.
eleven winters ago,
but i had to leave the table.
my cup of hot tea.
my dignity.
to search for hidden places where the curve of my skin
as i fed my son
would not
offend
you.
if i could do it again
i would be
brave.
i would.
and i mean it.
and sometimes beauty
finds me first.
i do not always have to look for it.
such a quiet kindness.
dressed in old wellington boots,
she was
feeding
the mallard ducks bathed in low liquid sunlight.
casting her bread upon deep murky waters,
for the angry mute swans.
their cygnets
grey
unlived-in feathers
furiously
fluffing.
that will be me some day,
i say.
and i mean it.
still finding things
that need
to be
fed
even as they peck at my feet.
— courage.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
Photography by Evie S.
it doesn’t have to be perfect.
there are wars being fought all over the skin of the earth, and
tomorrow does not fit into my hand.
does not have my name written on it yet, but
today
a magpie in its dinner coat,
is having an icy bath
in a pothole
in the middle of the road,
fearless.
and isn’t all this beauty wonderful?
— it doesn’t have to be perfect.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
Photography by Jannet Serhan.
a wee monday scribble to remind you that despite it all, this world is a beautiful place…
liezel
peter mayer sings it beautifully over here,
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=JHqv753oXnM&feature=share
how to fight death.
almost half my faith ago,
when i was wide-eyed
and
fresh in my skin,
a man in a white coat said
i think this might be all
that you’ll get, and
then
there will be no more days left,
for you to chase
in wonder.
and the thought that dying
might be difficult,
climbed onto
my lap and
stayed
with
me.
but somehow i was given more, and
ever since then i have run after
every scrap of beauty
that has danced
past me, and
the feel of the ocean on my skin, and the way that yellow freesias smell like joy, and the taste of the first cup of coffee in the morning, and the curve of my son’s nose against my breast as he nestled to feed in the dark, and the smell of rain after a drought, and the
way that my heart can still make
room for more love, and
how much courage
it takes to trust,
again
and
again, and
every time that fear
told
me
to
sit down,
i said no,
and i stood up.
and this is how i came to know
that living,
is the more difficult thing
to do.
not everybody knows
that dying is easy.
we are all doing it,
right now,
without even trying.
but
do
you
know
how to look fear in the eye,
and
say,
how beautiful is this day,
and i think i shall
enjoy it
very
much
to be
alive,
if only for a little while
longer.
— how to fight death.
(for djs with all my love).
© Liezel Graham 2019.
Photograph by David Boca.
courage, dear heart. you can do this.
you’ve changed, haven’t you?
all the truth that you once nailed to the inside of your heart — ran your fingers over every day when nobody was looking — none of it makes sense anymore, does it?
none of it.
and you’ve stared out of windows, and all those tiny cracks in your life, searching for the light, and for that thing that makes it all fall into place, and you’ve found it.
at last.
haven’t you?
and it doesn’t look like what you knew before, and it doesn’t look like anyone else’s, and how do you walk away from all that you’ve known?
and now, you’re afraid.
afraid of walking out your front door wearing your new life, knowing that they might not understand, and you’re lying there in the middle of the darkest thinking hours of the night, hoping they will see how lovely this new life looks on you, but all you can feel is fear.
why?
why are you so afraid of another’s eyes on your heart? have you not scraped enough pain from your skin to feel — to know, that it is ok for you to change? have you not discovered yet, that it is ok to change your mind about things — the biggest things, the smallest things, and even the holiest things.
you can change your mind about anything, really.
really.
because truth has found you in the most unexpected of places, and you have had to grow out of your skin, your birthday, your promises and your life, in order to know that you are only halfway there and suddenly, or maybe not, time has been shy, you realised that the joy that was once blooming in the middle of your heart, is dead, and has been for a while, and that living a lie will not bring it back to life.
only living, will, and
the light is out there waiting for you. waiting just for you to start putting down all the things that no longer fit into your hands, and your bones, and your mouth, and your eyes, and your life is there too, breathing in and breathing out.
with, or without you, and
you might have to undo a vow, or change holy books, or change the way that you have always ticked boxes, and loved yourself, but this can all be done, and
it is scary to stand there, naked from your bones to the tip of your heart, and yes, some of them will not understand, and yes, some of them will not be able to stay, and that is ok.
really, it is.
let them leave.
new people will come.
really — they will, because
do you know how beautiful your truth finally looks on you?
courage, dear heart.
you can do this.
— courage, dear heart. you can do this.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
Photograph by Kat Jayne.
on tending hearts and soil.
gardeners — the ones who like to get their hands really dirty — are some of my favourite people in the whole world.
they are only concerned with what is growing outside their own front doors, but their hearts are big enough to encourage the smallest effort at planting-and-hoping-for-life.
they know that most of us just need water, food, a place for our roots, and lots of love and light — and then the magic happens.
they know that fruit trees, and flowers all have their place and that we are all different, but rooted the same, and
they spend all their energy tilling the soil they have been given, and sometimes the soil that has been taken from them, too, and they know that bad soil, much like a heart, can be fixed by adding a bit of this, and removing a bit of that, and
that good soil can wear out if it isn’t given a chance to rest.
and gardeners know that a little bit can be too little, and a lot can be too much, and that life lies in having just enough of what we need, and when we have more than we could ever use, we need to give it away, or it will rot, right there in our hands, and that sometimes the more we harvest, the more we get.
they know that plants are greenest where they are watered and cared for, and
they live each day by the seasons — to a gardener, every season has a beauty, and a function, all of its own — to everything there is a season,
and it all belongs in the big plan.
they have enormous hearts — the biggest, really, that delight in seeing life, reach for the light, through dark soil, and
they know how to push through a bad harvest, or a harsh winter, or a drought that will kill the joy right out of a heart — they know how to look for hope, and for life, and even for signs that it’s over — and it’s important to know when something is over.
doors need to be closed, as much as opened, sometimes.
and these are my people, the ones with dirt under their fingernails and hope in their eyes, even when that hope is held by a single thread, or a tiny seed, and mustard seed is good for hope, i’ve heard it said, and
it only takes one — seed, or heart, either one will do — to get a plant growing, and a mountain moving, and a heart believing that there is more.
it only takes one, and that’s when the magic happens.
— on tending hearts and soil.
Photograph by Gelgas.
A little freeform writing this afternoon, on one of my favourite things in the world,
liezel
