Seasonal Portions

By Elizabeth Clayton

Elizabeth's poetry is, in sum, a collection of worded pictures of her sparing with illness, sensitivities, in relationships and of being - jousting with philosophical principles as they impinge on her sensibilities and intuitiveness, within the milieu of Bipolar perception. The resulting dissonance within bountiful periods of joy in creating - she finds, to some degree, a contentment, perhaps resignation, but surely a "lighted despair" in what she has come to view as the "feast" of life, where she wishes to come to table, often and long.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jul 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781466983229

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 2013 Elizabeth Clayton.

Assisted throughout by Tonia Germany.

Sculptures dressing this work were hand pressed by 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.

Created in the United States of America.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-8323-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-8322-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013910777

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Trafford rev. 06/29/2013

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Seasonal Portions

 . . . for everything, there is a season…

Holy Scripture

Elizabeth Clayton

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Preface

Insight Prelude

Leave me, let me be…

Part The First

Verses From 2009

My soul’s full song…

Part the second

Verses from 2010

The wealth of winter’s bare…

Part the third

Verses from 2011

The distance I have come,

Let me come again…

Part the fourth

Verses from 2012

Conclusion

Signature

Other works by Elizabeth Clayton:

INTRODUCTION

The work of most authors, those with any appreciable number of finished pieces, usually follows the growth, the maturity of their thought, through its reversals, plateaus, the steps in the forward movement of their lives. Factoring in are the daily routines, the unexpected events and activities, new and old relationships – these with the losses and repairs that accompany all of these areas of everyday existence. Included, also, are the influences of learning, either active, as in formal study, including, perhaps, fireside experiences, or observation, and experience in the areas listed above.

And then, there is the—at least—hypothetical genetic component, that which allows insight into what has been, and is; we sometimes say that a person has sentence sense, that he just knows, basically, how to write, especially so with instruction, if only a minimal amount. Some people have the ability to see the wisdoms in the playing out of the events of their lives, daily, and have the ability to express their sentiments, in poetry, prose or whatever genre chosen. Others do not have this ability, but can appreciate the worded picture given them; some stumble on through, knowing only the factors, existential, not understanding the metaphorical beauty of these presentations; such might be in the question of existence – if there are those who are not fully cognizant, they are kept, by mental maneuvers, at a distance so that appointments are honored, and life goes on; people live and die and the secret is unacknowledged, put aside with a cliché.

Such is the circumstance in which I found myself, since late childhood and adolescence. I have been, through illness and health, moving toward understanding the very dilemma of my own existence. It has been an all-consuming fragmentation, and disorganization in beginning poetic expression, though at times, quite accurate in assessments, and responses to them. Whether genetic or learned, or some combination of these, beauty has always served as the antidote to the depression, the dark pursuing hound, which has stalked my steps, exacerbating the fragmentating disorganization. Andso, my verse is a roll call of observations of beauty, or departure from it, as I have, within the net of illness, searched the bramble for truths to guide my thought.

As might be assumed, the more correct assessments and responses lie within the latest work, that dating from about 2003, forward, although much beauty and passion are recorded in some of the early verses. It is pleasurable to be able in taking up my pen, my truest and best voice, and to record my sayings. Disclosure is a paradoxical phenomenon, being wished and also feared, but we are larger, fuller, more – when we know enough of ourselves to share with another: wisdom can find more wisdom, if certain parameters are kept.

I provide, then, a growing unveiling of my beggar soul, its observations, as I comment upon my life and that of many others, working toward a kind of acceptance of the experience of being, althewhile holding judgment, this quest within quiet rebellion, beauty balming the wound of realization.

Elizabeth

June 4, 2010

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PREFACE

All preface remarks previously made to this most current volume of my work, verses from the four years just passed (2009-2012), are wholly correct; they are simply introductory to these present expressions. However, these verses, representing my most immediate thought rather than that of distant yesterday—and all that in between—require some additional comments. Having written now, more than twenty years, beginning in quite different circumstances than those of today, especially within a more balanced perceptual milieu (since early 2000 and the advent of care from Dr. John Norton, UMC, Jackson, MS) I feel that I must peruse the scape of my first work, but more, go into description of that to which it has metaphorhosed, a weltanschauung, a world view, greatly different, and in some fashion, not so much different, from the position at which I began. We grow, or stagnate as we continue living; I am grateful to have been permitted to grow, as per my recorded thought, if with, at times, almost intolerable prunings. We do not forget, but cast away, enlarging. Life becomes more beautiful, more affording with each exchange, these becoming wealth which knows few boundaries. All that before has become simply prologue to this moment, if colored, always, by grey clouds of dissonance. Andso, what of the nature of my now thought—the between of my boundaries, existentials which offer and require. Certainly my thought is the flesh of my verse, encasing my sentiment, my worded soul—sculpted and painted, both descriptive and telling. I do not offer solutions or formed wisdoms, but only that of the arranging aware, of my beggar soul, observation of will inside circumstance. I utilize, throughout, the vehicle of blank verse, for it, in my soundings, contributes few hindrances to my songs. I have no formal style as I have none in painting or sculpting, care of flowers, sewing and other activities. There is, finally, only the response to the imploding sentiment which spills over into the waiting aware.

However, a pattern to the sentiments chosen for addressing in these more recent verses, does become apparent, although not now as fully descriptive as expository. I have not abandoned the musings of my old self, for it is a viable portion of the now self, but living, being and burning, to borrow the words of Gustav Klimt, the nineteenth Viennese painter, is a fluid experience and so perhaps more focus falls on small ponderings as they surface, to, for us, become fully cognizant – in the stream – these rather than constructs always full in yesterday. And although I will must to express additional remarks regarding earlier verse, now, and later—these remarks today will be my full exposition on the entire of my verse, and I make no apology.

The day is full with hours and then comes the night: and the year is history to much of these. Between these parameters we exist, live, experience, feel, think. Record is truly the remembered observed of these activities—dismally, ineptly, carelessly, well prepared or well noted. Those few who do speak well, then, do so for many, and the combined effort of some, paint worded pictures for all, if with hues, shadings, and movement of their own needs.

Many of my early needs, those impeting the earliest verses, centered on those portions of my life most intense, those even out distorted observation and perceptions, experienced within uncontrolled illness. Life’s existentials are not particularly of kindness_ Yahweh logic_and minuses, can gather together particular periods of one’s life, offering great dissonance between will and circumstance. Yesterday, then, became for me a favorite escape, a garden of gentle light and tender touch, not because it was truly of that reality, but because it had some of these qualities, and was most, familiar, and characterized by simplicity and innocence (the full pastoral). Therefore, early in my thought, that not simply reactive but contemplative, grew the need for solitude, and such is, still, a great part of my now self. It bears lonely, but comfortably productive, easily accessing the wealth in yesterday. I dressed my thought carefully, colorfully, with different phrasing and vocabulary suited to intricate descriptions, although, most often, the verses written were spontaneous outbursts of feeling, to often be reviewed and words placed with best effort. Since my beginnings were humble, out of the wilderness, often wounding and frightening (I being without adequate resources, and unhappily, of gentle temperament), I escaped to the grande natural; it did, and continues, to supply strength, hope, courage and acceptance—all inside a bathing of beauty, sensorally. In its giving, I have, and do, find an antidote to its requiring, and beauty has become my solace in despair, through the entire process being encouraged and strengthened, effecting a logical construct. The point of its ineffectiveness became the opening of the I—Thou principle to which many hours have been spent in thought and review.

These postulates, then, were set in place before I could describe them, and only in these most recent musings do I recognize and deliberate about them consciously: they approach, spar, quieten in different guises, but they are present, still.

The need for good beauty and pure hope elicited preparatory responses which became, constuitionally, resting seeds, and the creative arts—as unceremonied as they were in the beginning—became my food and drink. With physical maturation, the sensual came to marry with other needs—autonomy and such—and the power of the moment etched into my own self, a valuable centras to my thought, but dalliance with love, or what I thought love, began an adventure of searching—freedom—eros—agape, the sweet pain of bondage, dependence into giving. Gender was always, ever in place, established, comfortable, but operationally at variance.

The self became an absolute, necessary fullness, with appointments of love, finally of companionate quality, inside openness—but always a perceptive pasture, perhaps most metaphorical. The transitory properties of selfhood and intrinsic beauty awakened fully, and do court my thoughts still, necessary to my individuation. Because of the early years with my immediate family and our difficult existence, truth became a construct fully necessary for living. And as abstract thought advanced, my reason began to suffer with the full grail of its natural verity—yet into today. I came to conceptualize the nature of man as a lesser god, humanity a very sea of less than fullest power and reason, left over of will against circumstance, breaking out into rare moments of fulfillment through creating, if inside long periods of resting and waiting.

As the years have processed, the connotations of spirit, soul, self, – these have blended—the whole of the matter seeking honesty with itself. Honor and fidelity are problematic to me, to the aside at least, in relationship, with the self left over of Bipolar illness. The attending matters of death, significance, or immortality hang about always – faith, myth, fable, conjecture—but inside a drape that does not lift. Summarily, at this juncture, I cannot but borrow the words of D. Thomas: Let me not go gentle into that sweet night.

Considering the principle, that our gender, intelligence, socioeconomic strata—all factor into our being and our creativity, alongside sensitivity and whole health—that these continue—they presently cloud a fresh morning’s ambiance to the entire of existence and being.

I am more taken aside by beauty in the years of 2009 and 2010, yet in these four years, passion and fire are as evident as growing understandings – vocabulary and phrasing acutely demonstrative of these both. Hard reason had not yet taken the fore to sentiment, a deficiency that became evident in the verse of 2011 and 2012. I am not content that so much beauty in description was lost to statement, defining, grave description of behavior and sentiment toward, always, almost, even more dark conclusions – suggesting Roman thoughts; happily, moments of beauty and content do come, intermittently, manifesting what can be the glory of the human condition.

I am somewhat displeased that my penchant for looking at the difficult in our realities became superlative to that of the abstractly beautiful, although I maintain that life is a feast – with beauty beside despair. As Zelda Fitzgerald wrote in her novel Ceaser’s Things (in a lucid moment of grave illness,) No one has ever measured how much a heart can hold. It is only that as the past continues into the distance, more of the holdings will out, in whatever fashion, color or dress. If some of my readers can find themselves among my expressions, those of my very personal concerns and treasures, the recording will have been more than mere transport of the aim, (Ms. Dickenson’s). And reason will marry with beauty in the whole of this intensely personal volume of verse.

Elizabeth

January 13, 2013

Afternoon, into early evening

INSIGHT PRELUDE

As my thoughts began their conclusive gathering, the hour approached its morning two o’clock, after an evening spent in conversation with a dear, former student, and new friend – and reading my poetry, for the purpose of its inclusion in a new manuscript to be published in the coming summer, 2013.

Two years were selected, of four, to be included, all of the verses having been read, earlier, for this publishment. They were familiar, with notes, and it is truly difficult to pen a simple, declarative statement about their style, content, beauty or truth. My life is a thread, a sigh, a raging fire, burning throughout these verses; I am a student of literature, having read and taught, at the college level, all of my life, and, although I would not presume to compare my work to a cherished model, I think the experience he noted in his later life (and in a somewhat closeted fashion), described – I feel, tonight,—that of my work, as he recognized of his – his of much greater scope and presentation, more worthy, surely – but I – with this worthy author – we can be possibly placed, together, in a singular awareness of self-scrutiny, and it as a viable portion of the whole masterpiece, the entire of humanity.

We are all grande, and we are all small, and it is the task, the glory of the writer, the author, to observe these qualities, together, in their variations – and in it all, catching the magnificent coloring of the human male and female becomes and arduous endeavor, one of a lifetime of thoughtful observation, with determined effort to record. At times, the record arrives, pure gold, and at other times, it is lacking. But this effort which I have seen, this evening, humbles me, if in fatigue.

Two of four years of verse to be published were successfully reviewed and evaluated. There are many perceptive glimpses of understanding the self – and others, beside. The recorded paths, the struggle and resulting beauty, with worth – these are surely the touch of grace, and I am as one in rags, bearing beautiful, worded jewels.

In these quiet moments, I think, first, of those who have allowed this effort to be realized, and the devotion, the vision and energy of my beloved parents enter, first; the wisdom of circumstance follows, and most, relationships, after childhood, come to the fore. I cannot even think of any successful venture in my adult life without thanksgivings to instructors, and my two, most able psychiatrists, the former for managing my illness so that, in the early days, I was able to function, after a fashion, normally, in these most requiring years of my unfortunate malaise, in its fullest flowering: and later, my present psychiatrist who saw my ableness, and simply would not allow it to go without further cultivation. There is no measure of gratitude in the matter – the support of the dream, the encouragement, the technical skill in managing my illness, personal qualities that I needed, still, yet – these, all, have been, and are, still, without adequate description. We have been a quasi team, and now, we have a commendable venture. The hour will be late when the jury comes in, but I feel, now, tonight, that it will present a favorable decision.

I cannot nearly compose a roll call of appreciative statements, and the raw flesh which has held out the recorded sentiment is, in greatest part, mine, but I am challenged by another’s very mature, poetic line: I glory in the glory I have seen. (Dante, in the first portion, The Inferno, The Divine Comedy). The human being does not change in basic needs, or in expression of them – only in the vestments of occasion.

I feel that the long, demanding years of inquiry have produced a belly,

Reviews for Seasonal Portions

[Dallas Hayes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Stunning expression of human experiences, this collection of poetry pulls you into a great exploration of self and thought. Seasonal portions is a year-round read.