Instagram story viewer> @bus611> Posts

Elizabeth Highsmith

@bus611

1.2K

followers

999

following

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Download All

The great equalizer in a world
forever bound by divide.

We all must eat.

The injustice of it.
The personal preference of it.
The lack of it.
The too muchness of it.
The inequality of it.
The absolute
Necessity of it.

Slice it down the middle.
Bite it.
Eat it. by @bus611

22

0

5 days ago

The laptop is cold
upon my fingers this morning.
The portal where I type,
most of the day.

It feeds me.
Soothes me
Informs me.
Enrages me.
Rage against the machine.

But the machine
is a friend,
an improvement,
convenient.
A world
I can tap dance on.
Finger and mind.

Cold fingers
come for us all.
Today I don’t know what mine means.
Maybe a warning.
Maybe a warmth.
Maybe a siren song.
Ginsberg’s howl
echoed across time.
Natures lament
Cold fingers type,
and do not roam.

No assurance,
No answer,
Merely proof,
There’s life out here. by @bus611

22

0

14 days ago

I buy the large vat of oats. And I eat them for breakfast. Maybe I’ll live forever. I sprinkle sugar in them, chop an apple and laugh at the irony and ridiculous humor. But who really knows.

Carl Sandburg has been the poet of the morning of late. I liked these four last lines from his poem Pals. An homage to pallbearers.

“The dead say nothing
And the dead know much
And the dead hold under their tongues
A locked-up story”

Eat, while we can. by @bus611

26

0

17 days ago

Before sunrise I glimpse the sky looking like an unavoidable flush. “This is what I feel, plastered for a moment upon my face.”

I watch the sun roll back down the sky,
across the mountain to the soles of my feet.

The sky a universal collective face, a public witness. It never apologizes for the darkness, light, or storms upon its face. It simply does it again tomorrow.

Call it friend or foe. I call it honesty. It only asks we pay attention and decide what it might mean. by @bus611

20

0

20 days ago

Where do the lumps go?
When you swallow them whole.
From the lump in your throat.
To the pit in your belly.
To the bottomless well of
…dot, dot, dot.
Fill in the blank
but you can’t, there is no word
For the lump in your throat.

@lorewilbert with three deaths
Just for now.
And seven ringless fingers
wants to know where the lumps you swallow go.
So. Do. I. by @bus611

22

1

25 days ago

Cold butter, cut, cubed, worked into flour. A bit of salt, sugar, ice-cold water.

Plied with hands, bare, naked, with the want of hunger. Dough, soft, sweet.

Hot butter, cut, melted, poured, licked, dipped. Salt of the earth.

Soft butter, knifed, spread over toast, over anything standing still, wanting more.

We are the butter. by @bus611

24

0

a month ago

As a friend said, “It was always going to be too soon.” She was the brightest light. To share the love of her with my goddaughter’s is extra special. Must love Dolly. For three year’s in a row I managed to create Dolly Parton Valentines. This year calls for an encore. I’ll make them extra sparkly. We will always love you, Dolly.

*card 3 is a digital download from Etsy I added the stickers! by @bus611

44

3

a month ago

One second everyday of July. A good little month. The good list: poems in the morning, time in nature, books and creativity, my very own raccoon friend. A magical rainbow in the graveyard and the highlight of the month was ending it in the beautiful state of Ohio. Every month holds the both and. The good and the bad. Here’s to anchoring our feet in the present, holding tight to the good, and lamenting the hard. And believing against all odds the good shall prevail. I’ll keep turning it up like a wish and a prayer, for all of us. And into August we plunge. by @bus611

21

1

2 months ago

The whole point of a sample day as you jaunt through the grocery store, is to make you buy the thing. Take home the new wonder, eat it, until it’s known, familiar.

We still tell the story, about the black forrest cake. We were aspiring thespians, who had no business being anything other than writers. I cannot tell you the lines or the point of our two act play. All I can tell you is the word, “emote” came out like a pilgrimage and I think I crawled across the floor.

The drama tempered by the meal we ate afterwards. That cake we will never eat again. The legend of the memory. We were there. There was cake, it was delicious. I can never repeat it. This is the gift.

This is the magic that falls on a Thursday, in a graveyard, thunder in the distance. A rainbow lights up the sky, magic you cannot keep, or repeat. You can only let it melt on your tongue. You can only roll that precise memory around like lore, like wonder. You can only taste a rainbow. by @bus611

36

3

3 months ago

1 second everyday of June! It was a good one. Highlights include I finally bought a new car! Thanks, Rose! I turned 45. The long light of summer gives me life, as does FDR state park, and the first peach ice cream of the season. I thoroughly enjoyed a weekend in Columbus, GA. And the Juneteenth parade of color, joy and black resilience gives me hope in my soul.

The mundane, and the hard show up right in the middle of all the good. Neither cancels out the other. We can make like @shannanwrites and counter the weights. I’m grateful to June for being heavy handed with the good bits. Onward bound.

Extra thanks to the best neighbors who give me homegrown tomatoes AND mayo. @gammatesa by @bus611

21

4

3 months ago

I see light,
before the alarm sounds.
How much time do I have?
Before I must right myself,
face another day.

I crawl out of bed,
Pad to my phone.
16 whole minutes.
I crawl back in bed.

Then the alarm.
I am up.
But still the question,
How much time do I have?

I move into a new age bracket.
45-54
I have passed the middle.
Most likely.
Perhaps long ago.
Who knows.

Mortality is the sound
of my heels.
Concrete walk across campus,
back to my office.

How much time do I have?
The wind blows.
I sense my mother.
Out there,
Somewhere.
Expired.
Forever.

Of course there is an answer.
16 minutes and counting.
There is what we know.
What we cannot know.
And what is not ours to know now.

My mother gives no answer.
Nor question.
Only a warmth in my soul.

My yoga teacher says
we transition.
Travel at the speed of light.
Unbound by time.
By alarm.
Simply there,
Being…
Ellipses in the wind.

For today,
I cannot know.
But I can be.

And smile,
back at my mother. by @bus611

18

0

4 months ago

Where I came from a revival was something you scheduled. Maybe a whole week, definitely in the evenings. You were supposed to pray and invite your friends. Particularly the lost ones.

Held in a tent, packed in the pews, a few scant metal folding chairs. I’ve sat in ones so empty I don’t think the holy ghost wanted to show up.

They’d turn up the emotional volume full blast. Throw a stone into the waters. Let it ripple and make a fuss. I sat in one on a Sunday morning where some Sunday school teachers and youth workers marched down to the front. Hell scared right into um.

Today I think revival is a cold drink of water when you’re so overheated you think you’re gonna be sick. You cool off. Your feet touch ground again. The volumes turned down and you can just be. Right there by the still water, however you are. You can let the fire rip off your tongue like a judgment lashing. I still wanna say and forgive yourself. But I think it’s more can you accept yourself and your neighbor doing the same, or worse?

I don’t know. But I think if you let yourself be a speck under the sky blue, you might find out. by @bus611

30

0

4 months ago