Poetry of the People featuring Elizabeth Leverton

This week's Poet of the People is Elizabeth Leverton. I first met Elizabeth several years prior to COVID where she was a frequent attendee at music venues I also frequented. As COVID restrictions were lessening we met again and she was in the process of having her first book of poetry published. She can now be found at poetry venues and readings in Columbia and around the state of South Carolina. 

Elizabeth is a multi-talented creative and is an insightful poet.

~Al Black 

Elizabeth Leverton is a poet, an acrylics painter, an amateur musician, and a sewist of functional art. An academic writer and editor, she earned a BA in English Lit and an MA in English: Writing and Editing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Elizabeth has been writing poetry for 35 years. Her first book of poetry, Peace, Rhododendron (2023), was published by Mind Harvest Press in Columbia, SC. A more recent, home-printed chapbook regarding the complexities of love and grief, called A Mad Dash to Tell You, circulated in 2024. Elizabeth lives in Columbia with two part-Siamese sister cats, Silo and Weaver, who are patiently welcoming their new sister, a five-year-old Shepherd mix named Crush, into the family. 

Generations, Words of Love, and a Turtle Called Myrtle

1. A two-storey, five-bedroom ranch house, at the top of a driveway.

Two women sit in the dimly lit dining room.

    One of them is blind.

The other reads aloud the love letters of the blind woman’s World War II romance.

2. The pen-pals, Shorty and Rose, will marry and raise six children.

Years prior to retirement from 5K-teaching, Rose will take a fish aquarium, formerly housing one    

    male Betta fish (deceased),

& deck it out with rocks and a lamp, dirt, green plants, and muddy water.

No bigger at first than a handful of nickels clutched in a child’s hand—   

A baby turtle called Myrtle will sunbathe there, and swim; dig at the sand; and eat leafy greens,   

    earthworms, feeder fish, & snails.

Myrtle and Rose will age together toward retirement: both dreaming of bigger worlds.

One June day, Rose will drive away from school for the last time, breathe in the summer air,

lurch up the driveway in her paneled station wagon, park, and carry Myrtle in a cozy box to a

    nearby pond.

“Whelp,” Rose will say, surprised by tears: “goodbye, my sweet old friend.”

3. Ten years later, Shorty and Rose’s youngest son, Dale, meets a Sadie Hawkins who asks him out to

    see a jazz band.

Mississippi born Rose finds Sadie forward, lacking dignity,

but slowly warms to their friendship.

Within a year, Sadie will sit with Rose in the dining room… and read Shorty’s letters to

   her.

Sadie will observe the couples’ proper greetings, colloquialisms, tendernesses.

She will think of Shorty’s mission overseas, and about Rose, with her head tucked in Chemistry books,

   working in a laboratory, waiting.

Sadie will think of Dale, Little smiling boy—Little towheaded boy,

growing up with his folks’ love letters

tucked away somewhere in a drawer.

4. At night by firelight Dale tells Sadie stories about Shorty and Rose.

Sadie listens half-distracted with Dale’s deep-set eyes, inscribing one takeaway in her imagination:

Rose, left without children at holidays, sinking to the floor, breaking bones in protest.

One time, a femur. Her left wrist. New knees. And now her hip.

Her new wheelchair creates two needs: Dale builds a ramp to the door, and Sadie becomes Rose’s  

    caregiver.

The bed where Sadie sleeps at Rose’s house is in a warm, wood-paneled room

with a brick-stacked fourth wall, in the basement of this ‘ranch house on a ranch house,’

as Dale describes it. The home is Rose’s Dream House.

Shorty was the dream who made sure it happened.

5. One morning Sadie wakes to scratching at the windowsill, ground level above her head.

When she investigates, she finds a turtle rustling in the leaves and grass, digging in the sandy

   soil.

“Oh, haven’t I told you?” Rose asks,

“That’s Myrtle, come to lay her eggs. She always comes home.”

6. Another year, some snow, & Rose is now dreaming visions of choirs singing to her from the yard in the

    freezing night; while

Alzheimer’s sinks into her mind, a slow-setting sun. Rose begins, gently at first, to walk back through

    memories,

with soon-urgent concern that the gate to her childhood farm has been left open,

and Bessie the Cow is roaming the streets again. This, while Rose is out of feed, and the  

    chickens are ruffled.

Months later, Rose will stop remembering conversations and start truncating the names of favorite

    things…

She will laugh at, not with; and insist on wheelchair adventures into the yard in search of

    Bessie and the chickens.

Rose will forget things, but Myrtle will remember,

traveling through half-awakened blades of winter grass that beautifully light the morning with dew.

Myrtle will make her way deliberately, from the small, muddy pond, lurching back up the hill

    to the sandy flower bed.

“Didn’t I ever tell you?” Rose will ask again.

“Yes, it’s Myrtle,” Sadie will repeat quietly.

“She returns every year,” adds Rose.

7. The Alzheimer’s Days tick heavily on, while

Rose eats less, and moves less, finally succumbing to time and her illness.

There is always Memory, though,

now yours:

of Bessie the Cow, the open gate, the hens that need feeding—

and the great returns:

of Myrtle the Turtle.

 ___________________________________________

Stars Fall, Sand Falls: A Shout-Out to God  

1. A reader who appreciates slowness,

nature, and starry nights.

Cool temperatures, sunshine,

and animals.

Always a seeker, more interested in observing,

in becoming, in growth—that inner work,

more urgent than a need.

Not trying to sway the opinions or dreams of others.

A survivor of aggression, sternness, and criticism—

carefree reactions will irritate Judges.

Carefree reactions might cause or be caused by tuning out,

an absentmindedness.

Still,

a love for equality—a basic, buck-stopping humanity, an arrogant compassion—is carved into

    that blank slate.

2. Darkness appears before the turning of the hourglass,

then light in that darkness: falling bits, sand,

shadows of memory pass like ghosts across attic floors.

Philosophies are different hats, new clothes, loved-to-bits mantras.

No scaffolding of beliefs around the mind-house: but a seat at the buffet of wisdom. 

& Mindful, when possible.

Physically far away from the past. There is more freedom to make decisions;

and less aggression to contrast them against, too.

“I’m never going to be…” must stretch; must grow; must become.

3. Years later, even a lunch menu becomes heavy when one is frantic for an answer.

But there is visual art, and it feels breezy

to love Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” or Picasso’s “Paul in a Clown Suit”—with pencil-mark

    leftovers— feeding generations delight.

Every brushstroke is exemplar play. Carl Jung proved it to heal trauma.

4. Philosophy, an arrogant parent, through winters of confusion,

questions intentions, demands accountability, and posits preferences.

What church trusts intentions?—Nature.

Gather

where green is… same, browns and blues…

Clouds drift and neighbor each other in shapes of dog, rabbit, heart, tree.

The answers are the answer:

5. “Love,”

comfort, Love—

freeing, Love.

Love is humanity’s shout-out to God.

 _________________________________________

Lone Girl versus the Darkness

1. I have stood terrified for a lifetime

of you.

I have worst-case scenario’d

my way through books and books

without light;

have hidden my heart from you;

have sat on that fence with cowgirl legs so you would think

I do not take sides.

Now I see you face to face—

& there is comfort in knowing

how small you really are.

You

are finite,

for hearts of darkness

never grow.

2. I have patched the holes in these jeans

worn threadbare on

barbed wire—

& I am riding now aside

into the sunrise in my mind

that you cannot draw from,

that you cannot dim,

that you cannot envelope

with sinister clouds,

& I do not care

anymore

of the fancy tricks   

that you will try, because

being terrified is

behind me now.

 ___________________________________________

Car Radio, Fourth Amendment

Chronologically before the terror-

filled memories I cannot repeat are

filed the inside jokes from the Holy Spirit.

I have sat across from wide-eyed friends on cat-torn sofas, tapping cigarette ashes into ashtrays, telling unbelievable tales. My 30s was a dark decade, to mid 40s, dark years; much hidden, much unable to be revealed. (It would break both of our hearts.)

    Up to the Grande diagnosis of 1990, I have not much recall, until wrecked thin by frustration,

I began to conquer Memory Failure via Mathematics.

The beautiful Geometry: Of music. Of art (and lack of art).

At five years old, I received a clock radio for Christmas, and looking back, I date memories according to songs I waited up for on the radio—at six, Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana (At the Copa).” By 1979, I stayed up watching the slightly glowing numbers flip on the clock

until the radio edit of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” played, a song that validated my boredom as a “mediocre” learner. 

In fact I have longed to be mediocre,

somewhere in the middle,

Not at one extreme, the other:

I stayed inside for teachers’ coffee breaks, not for coffee;

and got into fights (however, tho,

I never meant for my friend Ursey to knock her chin on a rock when we were roughing each other up:

I was really a bumbling peacemaker

in the wrong place at the wrong time.) Still today,

I write mental apologies to Ursey, & bless her chin;

and to the

boy whose deltoid muscle I administered a sharp-pencil shot to in second-grade math class

    after he called me stupid.

Otherwise nonviolent, my school antics and questionable midterm evaluations were for the most

due to being overly chatty with friends (something I have come to call my enthusiasm—for stories must

    stretch).

Aside from Ursey’s bumps, and a potentially lingering grey polka-dot

on the math genius’s arm, I escaped trouble throughout my school years due 100%

to a very

awkward

shyness

in public.

& so,

I desired,

to be never mentioned in my ninth-grade English teacher’s spontaneous roll calls

that

he might direct at anyone; asking the loud, the late, and the unlucky

from the front of a room filled with laughter…

“Do you have something you would like to share with everyone, Poopsie?”

His thick rims, thick glasses. His gray curly hair. The softness of his humor.

Poetry of the People with featuring Richard Garcia

This week's Poet of the People is Richard Garcia. Richard Garcia is one of the stalwarts of poetry in the low country of South Carolina. I knew of him long before I knew him. He is a wonderful advocate and mentor for other poets as well as a wonderful award winning poet in his own right.. I encourage you to buy his books and attend any of his readings in your area - he will not disappoint.

~Al Black

Richard Garcia's poetry books include The Other Odyssey, Dream Horse Press, 2014, The Chair, BOA 2015, and Porridge, Press 53, 2016. He has received a Pushcart Prize, and been in Best American Poetry.

Then 

A knock on the front door,

but no one is knocking. 

My mother is upstairs again

threatening to jump out the window.

And there is my best friend Tito.

The swish-swish of metal roller-skates.

Father Harris from All Saints Episcopal Church 

crosses the street holding my book

with two hands as if it were heavy.

He wants an inscription, something clever,

for his future granddaughter—should I tell him

that my book has not been written yet,

that he is dead now, and I am dead now,

that my mother's house

and All Saints Episcopal Church have taken wing

like two swans made of smoke,

swans that I might have imagined?

But that was now and this is then.

Tito says, Let's go back to Buena Vista Park,

let's go cardboard-sliding down the musical sand dunes.

•

 American Gothic  

My grandfather was the captain of a tall ship that sailed around the horn bearing rum and whiskey and always, just for me, a barrel of rock hard candy from the isle of Madagascar. My grandfather told me stories that made me dream of pirates, nice pirates that never hurt anyone. My grandfather waved goodbye to my grandmother as his ship sailed away with the tide. My grandmother and I waited for the sails of Grandfather's ship to reappear on the horizon. Tell me again, Grandma, What was the name of Grandpa's ship. It was called, she reminded me, The Constellation of Falsehoods. OK, I lied. I never knew my grandfather or my grandmother but I recall their picture on the wall. They appeared to be sad farmers. He was holding a pitchfork. She looked like she had just swallowed a large sour ball.

•

Message from Garcia 

 My brother was the rain.

He was also the sun.

My brother was a sun shower.

We used to sleep in the flames

of the gas fireplace when it was turned on.

but, since my brother was the rain,

the fire never harmed us.

My brother sang to make the moon come out.

He read to me from the pages of sand dunes.

Sad stories, always, sad stories.

Back in the olden days, television    

was not invented yet.

We would cut a hole in a box and stare at it.

My brother was the first Mexican-American

 basketball star. San Francisco

News Call-Bulletin—Headline:

message from Garcia:

He breaks the record for points in a game.

Next game, double, triple guards on Garcia.

Me, I was an expert at dying.

I would clutch my chest and slowly spin

to the sidewalk. I would lie there

for a long time, twitching spasmodically.

The players from the other teams

complained about my brother.

That Mexican, they said,

he slips through us like rain.

•

Freedom  

You are sitting up in bed reading a detective novel. Your eyes are open but you are asleep thinking you are awake. In this novel you are at Roosevelt Middle School with your girlfriend at your first sock hop.  You have never been to a sock hop, and don't know how to do the bop, the dance the white kids are doing.  So you do the steps taught to you by your Black friend, Felton, although at that time he was a Negro. The dance he taught you was called the Texas Hop. Soon all the white kids in the gym are dancing the Texas Hop. But your mind is flowing backwards. It's the case you are working on: The Case of the Missing Tar Baby and the Pillsbury Doughboy. Where they stolen, lynched, or did they run away together? The Tar Baby and the Pillsbury Doughboy have escaped from a chain gang. They have built a raft and are drifting down the Mississippi river toward freedom.

•

--

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Marjory Wentworth

This week's Poet of the People is Marjory Wentworth. Marjory Wentworth was and is poetry in South Carolina. She inspired us to become more than we had been and even though she has relocated to Ohio she continues to return and uplift South Carolina poets. Her influence will resonate through the poetry of South Carolina for decades beyond our living. 

Talking with Marjory on the phone is a gift of light.

-Al Black

MARJORY WENTWORTH is the New York Times bestselling author of Out of Wonder, Poems Celebrating Poets (with Kwame Alexander and Chris Colderley). Her books of poetry include Noticing Eden, Despite Gravity, The Endless Repetition of an Ordinary Miracle and New and Selected Poems. Her poems have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize 7 times. She is also the co-writer of We Are Charleston, Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel, with Herb Frazier and Dr. Bernard Powers and Taking a Stand, The Evolution of Human Rights, with Juan E. Mendez. She is co-editor with Kwame Dawes of Seeking, Poetry and Prose inspired by the Art of Jonathan Green, and the author of the prizewinning children’s story Shackles. She served as the poet laureate of South Carolina from 2003-2020, and in 2021 she received The SC Governor’s Award for the Arts. Her archives are held at the James B. Duke Library at Furman University. Wentworth teaches at Wright State University. She was named a Black Earth Institute Fellow for 2022-25. For further information see marjorytwentworth.com.

The Architecture of Containment

Enslaved Quarters Part 1

In the small square bedroom

Above the kitchen, heat rising

From the stove in waves so heavy

It was almost visible. A family

trying to sleep here, would lie still

As long as possible, tossing

And turning beneath moonlight, pouring

Through the only open window.

Sometimes a breeze

Carrying the scent of the sea

Rippled through the thick air

As if it could change everything

But the window turned in

On itself, on them and their entire world

The city beyond the high walls

Was as far away as the moon itself

Even the horses, snorting

In the stables

Across the courtyard

Could sometimes see beyond these walls

Flocks of seagulls would often

Find their way here

Strutting across rooftops 

Then rising through the line

Of magnolias

High above the walls

some would hover, almost still

Suspended in the air like hope

For The Poetics of Witness program, the Gibbes Museum of Art, Sep. 20, 2023 

1937

I never imagined my grandmother at rest,

until I saw the Dorothea Lange photograph

of a sharecropper wife and mother of seven

children near Chesenee, South Carolina;

because this woman is so relaxed,

as if her endless work is done.

Sitting on a chair – one arm stretched across

her swollen belly, the other hand

holding her chin; deep in thought,

her eyes are focused on something outside

the frame, dreaming into the distance,

she looks as if she can see beyond

the cotton fields and the small town

where she was born,

before the babies came one after the other,

before the lean years, when the store

still had barrels full of flour,

oats, and rows of sugary canned fruit

lining the dusty shelves.

After the war to end all wars,

she was young, and life was sweet,

the way it must have seemed

to my grandmother, before giving

birth to eight children on the kitchen table

in the gabled house on a bog road

across the stand of apple trees

in West Bethel, Maine, where snowdrifts

reached the roof most winters

and mud clogged the roads each spring.

In Hebrew, Bethel means house of God.

Sometimes, she must have wondered

where God was in that house west of Bethel,

those grueling years of war and rationing,

when the babies came one after the other. 

My mother, number 5, was the fattest. 

After three boys in a row, she was adored –

the only one to find a tangerine in the toe

of her Christmas stocking, beneath peppermints

and a pair of red mittens knit by her mother. 

She had never seen a tangerine,

and did not know how to eat it. At first,

she thought it was a ball that she could roll

across the floor and watch the black barn cat

try to catch it. This story was her easy way

of explaining how poor they were,

and how my grandmother could make a holiday

out of almost nothing.  Like the mother

in the photograph in Chesnee, South Carolina,

who sat down at the end of the long day,

watched the sun setting over the peach trees,

this woman who believed that the pink light

spreading across the tops of the flowering

branches was shining just for her.

Inspired by the exhibition The Bitter Years:  Dorthea Lange and Walter Evans Photography from the Martin Z Marguiles/”Sharecropper wife and mother of seven children, Near Chesnee, South Carolina” photographer Dorthea Lange

Flight

Clouds disassembling

Breathless in sunlight

Solid as the afternoon

I am not a part of

That is the place

I am looking for

The earth’s magnet

Of troubles, spinning

As far away

As I am travelling

 Nothing is Abandoned

Lined with miles of tangled vines,

coconut palms and bananas

growing thick and green,

the dirt road to the market

climbs through clumps of tangerine

bougainvillea and trees

laden with lemons and limes,

passing pink painted box homes

where bright laundry is always

drying outside on the line,

and roosters pecking at the earth

announce the day triumphant.

The road is the color

of the sun rising over the sea.

There is smoke on the wind

and prayers playing on the radio,

as the road fills with people   

walking in the same direction.

Everyone carries something:

buckets of picked peanuts, 

a small child on her mother’s back,

bags filled with mangoes, sugar cane

stacked on a tray. An endless

array of items passes by, from loaves

of bread to used batteries;

nothing goes to waste

in this roadside economy.

And nothing is abandoned

on this road pulsing with light

and the gifts the world brings.

Ghana, 2014

Poetry of the People with Al Black featuring Frances J. Pearce

This week's Poet of the People is Frances J. Pearce. I first met Frances over a decade ago in the low country, where she is a respected fixture of the literary community. I've heard her read at literary events and admired her steady hand when she served as the President of the Poetry Society of South Carolina. Her poetry speaks of family and friends as she observes the passing of days casting her luster on our community of poets.

Mount Pleasant resident Frances J. Pearce is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer whose work has appeared in Archive: South Carolina Poetry Since 2005 (Ninety-Six Press), The Fourth River, North Carolina Literary Review, Kakalak, Fall Lines, I Am a Furious Wish: Anthology of Lowcountry Poets (Free Verse Press), and elsewhere. Her poetry chapbook Those Carolina Parakeets Once Far from Extinct was published by Finishing Line Press. She is a past president of the Poetry Society of South Carolina. 

Yorkshire Pilgrimage 

On a drizzly August afternoon, Marion, Jo,

Katherine, and I traveled on foot up the perilous

hillside path to find her resting place—not

amongst ancient graves surrounding the church,

but in the walled section beyond the gate, behind

Dunleavy, beside the Drapers. All lined up like patients

in a ward. Black letters on gray granite. Full name.

Dates. A line of verse: Even amidst the fierce flames

the lotus can be planted. A tangle of weeds. Blades

of bright green grass. A lantern leaning against Sylvia’s

headstone, an unfilled basket resting on the mound.

Later, jackets drooping, skin wet, we four pilgrims

filed down the High Street of Heptenstall, passing by

the wafting aroma of mutton pie. The others cut through

occupied pastures and returned to our borrowed rooms

in Ted’s hillside house, a mile from where he buried you.

Alone, I entered a pub, empty except for the German

Shepherd, sporting a red collar, seated next to a window.

Night Sounds in a Neighborhood along the Wando River

Sometimes palmetto fronds

rustling. Sometimes a foghorn

cautioning an approaching ship.

Sometimes the buzz of mosquitoes

out for blood. Sometimes a deafening

boom as lightning ruptures

a loblolly pine. Sometimes the call of

barred owl in pursuit of wharf rats.

Sometimes a shipping container

plummeting to ground at the nearby port.

Sometimes the swish of a car traveling

across wet pavement. Sometimes the

explosion of a transformer. Sometimes

the scream of the vixen calling her mate.

Often the neighbors’ various dogs

barking. One time, a sudden screech

when your speeding truck missed the

curve. Tonight, the floofy cat pretending

I’m her kitten, purring into my ear,

It’s all right. Everything’s all right.

This week's Poet of the People is Kathleen Nalley!

This week's Poet of the People is Kathleen Nalley. I first met Kathleen at an event hosted by Kwami Dawes. Since then she has journeyed down to the Midlands several times to read at events I have hosted and I have had the privilege to read a time or two with her in the Upstate. She is a force of nature - a strong wind of sanity blowing from the foothills of South Carolina.

-Al Black

Kathleen Nalley is the author of the prose poetry collection, Gutterflower (winner of the Bryant-Lisembee Editor’s Prize), as well as the poetry chapbooks Nesting Doll (winner of the S.C. Poetry Initiative Prize) and American Sycamore. Her poetry and book reviews have appeared in New Flash Fiction Review, Slipstream, Limp Wrist, Rivet, Southern Humanities Review, The Bitter Southerner, StorySouth, and elsewhere, and her poetry has been anthologized in several collections. She received Jasper’s Saluda River Prize for Poetry in Fall Lines in 2016 and was heralded by the Richland Library as one of “10 SC Poets to Watch.” She’s participated in several community poetry projects in Columbia and Greenville, S.C.--most recently, in coordination with Greenville Poet Laureate Glenis Redmond for the Greenville Transit Poetry Project and for the Metropolitan Arts Council of Greenville’s Visual and Verse exhibit. Over the years, she has served as poetry editor of south85 literary journal, as an adjudicator for the Fine Arts Center of Greenville, as a judge for the SC State Library’s annual student poetry contest, and as a board member of the Emrys Foundation. She currently teaches literature and writing at Clemson University.

The Last Man on the Moon

Everyone knows Neil Armstrong: Staypuft moon walker, American posterboy, question to Jeopardy answer. The way Aldrin was all the buzz. Everyone loves firsts: first date, first love, first sex, first lunar walk. No one talks of lasts: marathon walker, buffalo corpse, minimum-wage worker, the sister not quick enough to the table, Eugene Cernan, who drove a lunar rover a mile, then knelt and traced his daughter’s initials—TDC— into dust. Cernan: the last man on the moon, the end of a legacy. The Omega. The Z. The period at the end of a sentence. The one whose name we don’t remember. The one who etched his daughter into the cosmos.

Black Dress

Although your mother cooked

pasta, lasagna, tiramisu,

you weren’t allowed to eat

more than three bites,

always a size two, to stay a size two,

always a halved grapefruit

on the counter, a bowl of peaches

rinsed of their syrup, fists

measuring perfect portions.

Boyfriends knew to deny you

milkshakes at the Starlite Drive-In,

where high school lovers swarmed

the parking lot, having only a few

hours before fathers would go looking.

You subsisted on Saltines

for weeks before senior prom;

the black dress your mother made

intentionally a size too small,

her tape measure lassoed

around your 21-inch waist.

Now, in the mirror, all you see

is what you never were,

fat and bulge and droop, the last

bobby-socked girl to be asked

to dance. Now, laugh lines

corner your mouth.

You don’t remember being

beautiful, the powder blue

eyeshadow, the brown scalloped

lace, your hi-rise and hospital job

in Charlotte, flirting with young plastic

surgeons who cut skin open,

lifted spleens to tables, painted

skin with scalpels.

Mid-life, you’ve got wonderfully

open carotids, jeans that fit,

secret cravings and scales

like gargoyles in every room

watching over the numbers,

those damn numbers that creep

into your sleep, wake you

in a panic, as if you’re walking

late to class naked, as if there’s

an algebra test you forgot to take.

Behind the louvers of your closet,

the perfect little black dress

in case someone dies.

 Judicial Hearing Ghazal

The girls school girls—were they were dressed to impress
the boys school boys at the weekend parties on your calendar?

Another beer down the hatch, another punch bowl to spike, another girl to access,
another notch on your belt, another to-do checked off of your calendar.

The boys lined up in trousers and ties, dressed for success—
a train of future executives and judges with no time on their calendars.

Punch-drunk, literally, those girls that you pressed
against you—funny, their names don’t appear on your calendar.

One says you forcibly groped, shifted her dress:
unmentionables unmentioned on your calendar.

Another says luckily she had emergency egress
before more harm could be done. She kept an emotional calendar.

The women who’ve come forward, their memories repressed
years, decades—did they keep calendars? (And how were they dressed?)

The parties, the drinks, the boys, their aggressions—details from all three coalesce,
details corroborated, at least, in part, by your calendar.

They’ve experienced PTSD for decades, traumatic duress
while you climbed the ladder, made appointments on your calendar.

A limited investigation, limited witnesses addressed
within a limited scope—the vote already fixed on the calendar.

Women know how it goes. #metoo. #whyIneverreported. We persist, nevertheless.
Take it on oath: November 5 circled in red,
                                                                          circled in red, circled in red
                                                                                                          on our calendars.

Life Sentence

In 2014, Oskar Gröning, 93-­‐year-­‐old former Nazi accountant, was charged with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder

For 60 years, you’ve sought absolution

in birds,

their wingtip and beak,

their freedom of flight.

You dumped 661 pounds

of seed in your yard,

shallow bowls overflowing,

just so you could pass the years

witnessing their formation: always a V,

nary a soldier not following suit.

Sixty years you’ve waited, contemplated

your garden, your lawn pocked

by all those small empty saucers.

What Man’s Hands Wrought

Long before there was fracking there was you unearthing the very earth digging trenches in soil spilling your chemical goo turning mud to muck leaving nutrients to dry fuck you nature heals herself in time even the most eroded can make anew grow pickups from seed littered the wind always knows what to do carry things away carry things where they will bloom wildflowers color the landscape permeate the air oh her honeysuckle hue she’s wild always wild always remade no matter the matter or intrusion or drilling or fracture believe her she will

This Week's Featured Poet of the People with Al Black is Stephen Wing

This week's Poet of the People is Stephen Wing. In the environmental poetry scene, Stephen Wing is a force to reckoned with. I spent three days at the Off the Grid Festival outside Spartanburg, SC with him last Autumn and he has featured twice for events I organized in the Midlands area. He is authentic and writes from his strong belief in the sanctity of nature. We need more Stephen Wings. 

-       Al Black

Stephen Wing discovered the wilderness in the summer after ninth grade, and suddenly the world made sense. A deep connection to wild nature has been his spiritual center ever since. His work as a poet ranges from the personal to the pastoral to the fiercely political. Once each season he hosts the “EarthPoetry” workshop, exploring metro Atlanta's many protected greenspaces and nature preserves. His new book Wild Atlanta combines poems from 23 of these locations with stunning color photos by Luz Wright. He is the author of three previous books of poems and the Earth Poetry chapbook series. Visit him at StephenWing.com.

Lightning’s Compass

With every flash and flicker of the sky,
I glimpse another few steps
of the trail back to my tent,
this slow pilgrimage between the trees
without a flashlight—
fork to the left, jog to the right,
slippery downgrade, low-hanging branch—
like my life sometimes,
the chain of epiphanies lighting up my path
and the pitch-dark
between

Underfoot

Every time I walk down
into the hollow
through the winter woods
or up the mountain again,
I stop right here.
Standing on the packed earth
of an old logging road
where the creek slips quietly
through its rusty culvert
underfoot,
I’m not so much listening as feeling
a kind of tickling caress
through the soles of my shoes
and I recognize
a crossing of paths, a choice,
a way back
if I could only turn
and follow.

Ever Since Evolution              
     
              for Dawn Aura

Of all that’s ever
begun with an orgasm,
I think I like you
best:

Ever since the Big
Bang, ever since Genesis,
ever since the Milky Way gave birth
to a green-blue baby
called Earth—

All down the generations
of amorous plankton,
the dynasties of protozoa,
whole species that married and merged
into new species,
brewing up an atmosphere of
hospitable chemicals . . .

Down the golden ages
in the Garden, whole
civilizations of bacteria
that slowly grew into specialized
cells of one another,
building over millennia
the confederation of organs . . .

Ever since Evolution
conceived a tribe of naked mammals
begotten by the lineage
of Chimpanzee, I think
of all the protoplasm in the diaspora
of Creation, you
are my favorite animal

Grandmother’s Seeds

                  for Anna Maude, my grandmother

She’s out in her garden,
bending down to touch the soil.
She covers each seed as she
must have tucked me into bed, long
ago.  Her old hoe is worn
to a shining crescent, sifting
earth into dark flour.

She never knew the shelves
in her bathroom were lined with
the signs of the zodiac.
I never heard her mention the moon.
She sprinkled poison like
holy water and thanked the Lord
for filling her deep-freeze.

She sits at the lamp
over her morning devotions.
Outside in the dimness
the first seed stirs in the ground.
She folds her glasses, closes
her book on its bookmark and goes out
to turn on the hose.

The Naked Scientist

I am the naked scientist
singing as I set my specimens free
Joyfully I observe the positions of things
and nudge them off their courses,
gauge their direction and budge them
from their places

The green things around me lap my exhalations,
my fresh odors startle the ancient
solution of gases, I let my hand pass experimentally
down the mossy flank of a boulder
purring in the sun

I ache sometimes at sunrise
for the waking of the world to what it knows
Each day I gather data, and grieve
for the grieving of one or two or eleven people
I hadn’t counted before

And I look over my notes at sunset
comforted by this work of the Study of Woe,
calculating my Theory of Revelation
in the face of entropy and decay

I live to know this world as my grandmother
knew her Bible, but best of all
I love the pilgrimage
of the search—

(Shall I tell you my discovery?
It is all alive.
And the snowflakes are not
all one sex.)

Asphalt Nights

Looking back now, I often
regret that night in my delinquent youth
when I impulsively
borrowed a shovel and buried
my memories of childhood down by the creek
under a full moon.
How was I to know the entire floodplain
would be paved for parking
when they built the new mall?
Night after night now I dream I’m a lost child
roaming mile after mile
of fresh black asphalt under the floodlights
between the slumbering cars,
kicking my shadow ahead with every step,
stopping to listen
at every storm drain for the faint
trickle or drip of some other world
to wake up in.

Man Breathing Life into Metal
(Note italics at end)

The saxophonist wets his lips
and caresses his mouthpiece

sucks it in and lets it escape
and then draws it back

into himself so its dark twisting
entrails join with his own

clamps the dormant light of that
gleaming muscle in his

fingertips and forces through its
thin lips from his own

the infinite compression of a breath:
the golden bell sings out

with the panic of inarticulate matter
waking to the agony it is

to be an animal, the joy it is
to move and speak and sing

“Now when I get through playing it,
it going to be just as warm as my body . . .”

Moth

I bit my fingernails too short
waiting for this bus, I stood
too close to the road too long, peering
through the haze of engine fumes—

Everyone around me pretends not to know.
So naturally by now they‘ve all
long since forgotten.
No one on this bus remembers
poetry overhead among the ads:  today
hundreds of cockroach silhouettes,
the extermination campaign . . .

A dead moth
on the stairs in the train station knows:
startled black and red and yellow eyes
on shattered wings
stare past me through the concrete overhang,
and suddenly I see
right through the step I’m about to take—

Its furry underbody
leaves a yellow pollen on my fingertips.
Ridiculous
to carry the fallen creature home.
Ridiculous to choose one place
out of all the galaxies
to go.

Distant Singing

Listen:
somewhere off in the distance,
a motor.
It too has a song.
It’s the song of pushing eagerly forward,
heedless of how,
careless of where,
regardless of why,
intoxicated
with the singleminded joy
of burning its little tank of fuel,
never mind
where the fuel came from
or where that little plume of smoke
might go.

Hurtling Through Darkness

Hurtling
between the silver ribbons
uncurling eternally
out through the darkness,
steering by a chain of diamonds
strung through space,

I start again every time
I stray from my lane and they
bump under my tires, the reflecting
eyes of all the animals
who have died for this highway—

Focusing my own wild eyes
into the rainstorm,
the floodlights of billboards,
the pulse of blue lightning
at the power plant,

leaning back in the cushioned engine
of my will
with the road’s vibration
humming in my vitals,
gripping the steering wheel as tight as my life,

I ride the thirsty beast
of my momentum, obedient to the signs,
barely in control,
hurtling through the darkness of the eons
of extinction

MONIFA LEMONS is this week's Featured Poet

This week's Poet of the People is Monifa Lemons.  Before there were titles for poets there was Monifa - one name, no title, was enough.  She personifies what it means to be a poet: gracious, mentoring, talented, and selfless. To know Monifa is to experience poetry in and of the Kakalak. I am honored to call her friend.

Monifa Lemons, also recognized as SelahthePoet, began her poetic journey in Columbia, SC in the late 90s, both as a Spoken Word Artist and as a host at various venues. Her work can be found in various publications. She is currently an elementary school teacher, and a facilitator with USC Trio Upward Bound. Her focus is on creative writing and intentional creation with children and community. She is also following her entrepreneurial dreams as Coffee Roaster and Co-Owner at Haiku Coffee 575, a company she opened in Fall 2020 along with her four daughters and has returned to her original art of acting, playing the principal role of Mama in the short film Crooked Trees Gon' Give Me Wings, Directed by Cara Lawson and Produced by Hillman Grad Productions.

After Dogon Krigga

Bouncing lateral
On wind cutting our eyes
At revelations

B Boys spinning like
Dreidels on pointe listening
To scratched petals bloom

No blinking allowed
Instead, a creation stare

Calloused eyes don’t crack   

Letter from my Grandmother 

Monisa, 

it’s still da same. Dem chickens still gotta be fed, even pass dat rooster. You still gotta wake earlier when youra mothuh. You still gotta find dem chaps a home. You still gotta find a job. a real one. You still gotta stir grits, even if you raisin’ chillen that don’t want em. You still gotta do all of it. Ain’t nobody gon’ cayit forya. You still need a car. You shouldn’t be afraida da walk. You still gotta carry da wood in e’en when there ain’t no stove. You gotta wash. He’s still your uncle an’der was nothin’ we could do. You still gotta learn’na sat here an’ stay. Here. Wit’ us. You know howta make dat nana puddin’? Den you gotta teach’em. Still.   

Moon Cycle

I pinch tissue between first second and thumb
Wrap the roll like gauze over and over. Hand

Slide off palm. Fold in half. Reach between legs. Shove cover.
The hole He hallowed. Seeping. Cursed.

With standing we adjust. Loose.
Plugged crazy. Gathered insane. Stuffed.
Granules of sugar in my spoon. Stirred.
Echoes muffled. Hope absorbed. Picked by cotton.
I now walk in the room.

Water Beckons

Water beckons. Step by step I fill
myself. Up my legs. Down my hands.
slap. splash and play.
Wash me
River. Wash me whole.
Twirl my spirit til I know knot.
Cleanse me. Send a smile down.
Stream it tickling past the legs of another.
Call them out
to wade. Join us…
within the wade.

You Look good

You look good. You look good. Yeah good.

You look good. What are you doing now?

What are you doing? You look good.

You look good. What have you been doing?

What.

What have you not been doing? What were you not doing?

When did you care? When did you care about looking good?

When you do that, you look good.

Look.

Look, you are good. You are good. When did you start to care.

When did you start to care about looking? You look like you care.

About looking good, you look like you care.

You care now. We see that. We can see that you now care about

your look.

See. Look. at What. Care.

Care.

You care now. You now care. Care has been taken in your look.

Now.

What could you be doing? What have you done?

You care. We'll care now. To look at you.

We care to look at you. You look good.

Now.

Poetry of the People's Featured Poet - Libby Bernardin

This week's Poet of the People is Libby Bernardin. Libby is not only a gifted poet, she is a kind and gracious human being. Meeting her is a spring morning where you feel confident the world will go on and you belong in it. She makes you feel important and not the other way around. Reading her poetry is the warm air of a furnace at your feet while sipping tea at her dining room window while she tells you the history of every bush and flower in her yard.

Libby Bernardin is the author of House in Need of Mooring and Stones Ripe for Sowing, both published by Press 53. She has published two chapbooks and contributed to many journals. She has won poetry awards from the Poetry Society of SC and the NC Poetry Society, and is a member of both poetry societies. She is a lifetime member of the Board of Governors of the South Carolina Academy of Authors. She writes and shares new work with The River Poets, a group of women who are dedicated to poetry.

____

The Price for Long Lives is Sorrow

You could say a long and measured life walks with a dream,

mysteries clotheslined across the sky blowing like sheets—

Words keep unpinning     unfolding     letters spelling

out worn-out stories. What am I to do with Joseph

of the many-colored coat, an imprisoned Hebrew

with God-inspired dream talk. Pharaoh chose

him who stored the grain to save plague-torn Egypt.

And where are the Josephs among us?

The would-be king thank God is gone.  We have a new leader.

May he be among the long lived for we the people

who haven’t the courage of a sharecropper’s son

crossing the bridge—first to violence, last to peace,

always his aim. His caisson marches. Remember his

long life of sorrows, his scattered good-trouble seeds

like wildflowers—purple fringed     lily-leaved     sweet shrub

spicebush     bloodroot uproot into the world     blossom     blossom.

 (Included in House in Need of Mooring)

Again,                                                            

morning moon    Pink    among leaves  

drops into the West    

flirting I think    

with me

demure as a silken scarf

 plucked

            by a sly wind

to flutter out

the window

from a bed side table

the barest hint of liminal—

O Holy Space 

that winters where you bloom—

light another day

dreams now ebb 

into darkness as the croon

of a white crowned sparrow

lilting notes distinctive

as its pink bill     opens the day—

and    here      yet again     anew

 (Italicized line from David Havird’s poem, “Midnight Oil”, included in his book, Weathering)

~~~

 Litany                                                                                                                                                                                                  

 As the world holds beauty in the deep and lonely forests

                                    Conduct me in wonder

As the moon rises high enough for me to see from my bedroom window

                                    Conduct me in fascination

As the woodpecker pecks around the pecan tree burl

                                    Conduct me in pleasure

As the white camellia layers its petals, pinwheels of sighs

                                    Conduct me in love

As the iris blue flag flutters in a wind

                                    Conduct me in resilience

As the hatching from mother alligator swims confidently in briny water

                                    Conduct me in gentle laughter

As the snake sheds its skin, leaves it on the rim of my strawberry pot

                                    Conduct me in respect

As the red-winged black bird breeds in marshes and scrubby fields

                                    Conduct me in new life

As starling murmuration creates angular shapes of dark clouds over Norway

                                    Conduct me in astonishment

As I wonder about the god hiding, languishing in the star-filled sky

                                    Conduct me in faith

As I hold my hand over my heart about suffering in Ukrainian photos

                                    Conduct me in compassion, in mercy

As I cover my eyes in anguish over the murder of children in Uvalde

                                    Conduct me in mourning and right action

As there is any inequity in my hands, ire in my heart

                                    Conduct me in truth, the morally right, the just

As I have lived a long life of love complex as the moon’s pull of tides

the sight of the Southern Cross in Brazil, the birth, the birth, the birth

Conduct me in knowledge, grace, heart

~~~                            

Shreveport 1954, Before the Late Crowd                     

It was a barrel of a room. music a boom

from speakers, the sultry drumbeat

as though a queen arrived expecting voices

with hands full of dollar bills, me sitting

between my cousin and her husband—

and before me, a beauty with stars on her tits

and I guess a G-string—oh she was stacked

and shone like she could make it in LA.

So, what’s she doing in this raunchy beer-smelling

place with me feeling sorry for her, as we watched

those long stockinged legs—a garter for dollars—

wrap themselves around a pole, no moola

anywhere I could see—early patrons

just eatin’ peanuts over at the bar,

knocking down a few—then the MC

introduces a Miss Douget? here on her 18st

birthday give’er a hand, guys, c’on put ‘em together

for the Carolina girl, and me turning around to see her,

Miss Douget. Miss Douget? then my cousin elbowing

me and whispering, Stand up, stand up, take a bow

which I reckon I did, stunned—Did I hear a drum roll?
I awkwardly stood up, sat down red-faced—beauty

blowing me kisses, gingerly.No warily.

Later that night, I thought of her pole dancing

on my birthday, and I hoped she would make it to LA,

and I would find her on the cover

of Photoplay Magazine, far away from

that vacuous room, empty except

for a few beer-barrel guys with no money

in their hands for her garter.

After “Nashville After Dark” by Ada Limon

~~~

A Photograph, February 23, 1934                                                  

Forever in sepia on their wedding day—

Their lives unreel as moonflowers

open to the dark sky

Or early evening primroses uncurl at dusk

A light wind scatters leaves and twigs

I put down the photograph     

on my kitchen counter—

            begin to knead my dough     think of how

mother rolled her biscuits in the palm of her hand.

Once, after a hurricane snapped off tree crowns

from the tallest pines     felled a thick

                                    limb from the old oak

wrapping Spanish moss around and around

a twig, yet      not even in two hours green burst forth

light ladled on trees

in the longingly pure air—Father came

home     the day’s shift done

puts his hands on Mother’s

waist     pulls her slightly to him

plants a kiss in her hair

I am calm watching them    

I was always calm watching them

I look out my window

I think     how young they are     I could swoon

            at their fierce beauty    Did I come to soon

 crush of time already            

burdensome—remind me

how quickly storms shift from high winds to breezy jasmine scents

            love returns                 yearns for better times

~~~

About Yesterday…

It’s always behind us

holding on to what needs to go—my husband’s death,

your divorce—those days left us brooding

under a dappled bluesy sky

Today you and I alive with the sun’s

glint on the loquat tree, breakfast on the porch—frittata of onion

& mushrooms served with avocado

We watch the young flicker feed, furtive, wary

                        We take solace in our past

for me the farm, Grandfather and Grandmother in their kitchen—

he rolls his cigarette, watches her, hands in biscuit dough

their yesterday in growing crops, feeding field hands

You at play on the river,

fishing, your stories of Daddy Ben & how he taught you hunting

ethics—kill only what you will eat, waste nothing of your catch

be a good master to the pup I give you

So about yesterday, it’s behind us

flits of memory—lost loves we can’t catch, grief rendered

            useless, the choices we made, but look here—this poem

                        I wrote for you on the desk you made for me

Poetry of the People featuring Jane Zenger

This week's Poet of the People is the Bard of Cedar Creek, Jane Zenger.  Jane, is a legend from the Pee Dee to the Broad to infinity and beyond. She is a force of nature - an organizer, educator, environmentalist, small farmer, who also happens to be an excellent poet. A gifted storyteller, Jane will make you laugh and gasp in the same stanza. Buy her book, Night Bloomer, and know she is a life well-lived.

Jane Zenger lives in Blythewood, SC in an old forest on the edge of Cedar Creek . She has a BA in English literature and a Ph.D. in Reading and Literacy. Jane studied poetry at USC with the late James Dickey and her work is included in his book, From the Green Horseshoe.  ‌She‌ ‌was‌ ‌a‌ ‌feature‌ ‌writer‌ ‌and‌ ‌poetry‌ ‌editor‌ ‌for‌ ‌‌Auntie‌ ‌Bellum‌,‌ ‌a feminist‌ ‌magazine‌ ‌published‌ ‌in‌ ‌South‌ ‌Carolina.‌  ‌She‌ ‌also‌ ‌edited‌ ‌‌The‌ ‌Spotlight‌,‌ ‌a‌ journal‌ ‌dedicated‌ ‌to‌ ‌at‌ ‌risk‌ ‌youth,‌ ‌teen‌ ‌pregnancy‌, ‌and‌ ‌dropout‌ ‌prevention. She worked as an English/Reading teacher in both urban and rural South Carolina schools and was a USC instructor, researcher and director of federal Teacher Quality Enhancement programs. As an undergraduate she did archaeological research on an early man site through The University of Alaska. She also worked on a USC environmental impact study on the coast. Jane has worked in Texas, China and Zambia. She is a passionate advocate of the Spoken Word
movement in South Carolina and has recently completed Night Bloomer from Muddy Ford Press. This new book of poetry reflects love, heartbreak, travel adventures, comical events, and always- her close connection the woods and creeks where she lives.

____

The Unraveling

What is there to love in a world unraveling?

It’s unsafe to put such precious cargo as a heart

and soul in the broken box of my body.

I can’t stop thinking on this cold spring day,

watching the creek  overflow, what’s next?

There are the same old wars waging,

the same fires we extinguish over and over

sprouting up again, rising from a mystical phoenix.

The same old hate and anger boils over.

Wars I can’t smash, bury, ignore or accept.

The wrong people are making the same choices

over and over. When their choices bully me, I resist.

In the world that kind of ignorant selfishness

leads to loss and division, disease and death.

What century is this where the infantile, selfish,

and belligerent still retain power?

When is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius

that we were promised?

On this afternoon I flow through the meadow.

I wish I could punch the clouds full of acid rain.

I won’t punch the clean willowy ones after an April storm,

or the ones today glowing pink, orange and purple at sunset.

I drop to the ground face down to experience the

soil scent and the soft grass and clover. I sense another

world upside down, feel a mild wind, the old buck snorts,

I hear distant airplanes and at least five, no- six bird calls 

and something chirping. The crows acknowledge me and

buzzards form a wide circle. My cats gather round curious,

but not really caring why I am upside down. They wait,

preening and watching the birds so as not to waste time.

So fortunate in their blissful oblivion.  

Whip Lash in the Pandemic                                    

I can be blistered in the sun one day,

and frozen from the inside out the next,

losing my footing in the turbulence.

I feel like a kitten in her mother's mouth

being dragged and bumped, helpless.

But at least I am not left behind.

I have to find myself again every morning.

Find the humor in how I am going down.

It is a whip lash and I am serving time for all my sins.

Encourage me. Discourage me. Ignore me. Adore me.

It’s all the same. The tide is always running out.

The sky is winter pale, nothing on either horizon.

Baby birds are blown out of the nest,

trying to fly, only to be eaten by my feral cat

Other creatures waiting below.

My body is broken as well- from the day

I tried, stiff and weak, to fly after so much time

quarantined, sequestered, afraid.

This is the year  of one pandemic after another.

This sorrow bangs me like a limb on a window pane.

I am not shattered yet, stubborn as I am.

From my perch let's examine today,

the joy of being alive, of being loved helps.

I am mining memories. Someone is

reminding me to breathe...sing...cry…reach out.

Selfish choices placed me on this precipice,

tethered to the vows I made. That life is over.

I live for love and I long to live. Yes, you may come in.

It Only Takes a Moment to Die

When you took your last breath

It was so simple

So calm and unanticipated

So remarkably

Like any other day

Like a wisp of a cloud

On a clear sky

I knew the time was near

I knew the moment would be

yours only.

Unpredictable.

Controlling death as you did our life.

I slipped away for just a moment.

Stepped alone into the morning air.

You stepped alone into eternal peace.

For death, like life, is an unpredictable gift.

Poetry of the People Featuring Ann-Chadwell Humphries

This week's Poet of the People is Ann-Chadwell Humphries. Ann declares that she is from the earth and belongs here. She is a force of nature - granite sparkling in the sun. Silica and alkali metal oxides stirred in the magma of life's challenges, congealed into the poet, Ann-Chadwell Humphries. I am honored to call her a friend.

Ann-Chadwell Humphries, a blind poet from Columbia, SC, was selected by Muddy Ford Press to publish her first collection, An Eclipse and A Butcher. She has twice been a finalist for the Carrie McCray Nickens and once for the Julia Mood Peterkin poetry contests. She won Syzygy’s Emerging Voice Award, sponsored by The Jasper Project, for “An Eclipse and A Butcher.” She is a speaker scholar for South Carolina Humanities and her papers are archived at USC Special Collections Library.

____

Thirteen Ways of Looking Through Darkness
~If it's darkness we're having, let it be extravagant — Jane Kenyon

I
At the fire-fringed margins of the universe,
Images of the origins of light stream
Through the eye of a gold-plated telescope.
II
I am fluent in Light and Dark.
The demise of my retina
Reveals infinite sentient worlds.
III
When illumined, darkness loses its dominion.
Technology renders the unseeable, seeable.
IV
Lightness and darkness
Are one.
As much in the mind as in space
They are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of resilience
Or the beauty of interdependence,
The odyssey into the unknown
Or the transcendence thereof.
VI
The freight of low expectations
Slow-grinds the human spirit.
The only way around is through.
VII
O voice of self-doubt and discouragement
Why do you shout?
Why do I listen?
Why dismiss the universe
Of riches there for the taking?
VIII
I have wandered outermost reaches
And territories of resistance,
And come to exalt
The company of Darkness.
IX
Infrared waves send images
Of unprecedented clarity
Through the lens of the deep space telescope.
X
Reticular spirals and arcs
Flower in the womb of morning.
Bots of importunity align.
XI
When I was diagnosed, doctors advised
That I not overthink; I could prepare.
Not chase cures in China nor Europe—
for They knew I would
Go to the ends of the universe.
XII
I have learned to see with my feet, my ears, my skin.
Import my imagination.
My heart is not blind.
XIII
Years of tests, classes, cursors, prisms
led me on an arduous journey
into the gravitational pull of blindness—
my new orbit—frisson from the cosmology of sight.

Wildflower Trail

Overgrazed ranch land proffers rare views
of blue hills that rumple and bunch until fracture
on the fault line into limestone cliffs, spring jeweled
water from chambered aquifers into creeks,
into rivers fringed with cypress tresses combed
by wind, siren temptress, intoxicant to tourists
and retirees. Overnight, bare-boned water and sewer lines
incise hillsides, weave asphalt webs of infrastructure
for tract housing between Austin and San Antonio.
My parents succumb, lured by open spaces, slower paces
and light-filled rooms of new construction, new appliances—
fresh start from hard work. My father plants cedar elm
for shade, Blue Italian Cyprus for windbreak—
this is Texas harsh—and as trees grow, so grows development:
Methodist church, elementary school off the bypass,
doctors’ office complex within walking distance.
In the undeveloped acreage behind, my father hangs
a blue gate shaped like the Alamo, drags a mower
through that gate to mow walking trails, shortcuts to church.
In March, the field flames in airy wildflowers which wave
fiesta-colored blooms to passersby on the farm-to-market road.
And in their yard, my father trims the bluebonnet patch
that spreads each year as if inviting flower kin. In that seasonal
profusion, my parents host a wildflower brunch for neighbors
and library friends for guests to wade waist-high amid bliss.

The Coffin Maker

An occasional call with plea and please for a coffin
tomorrow or day after for a friend’s stillborn granddaughter.
His motion slow and solemn, he sorts through his pile
of special wood favored to repurpose. Finds an orphaned
burled walnut he had forgotten, hardwood not too heavy
for something this small. He makes a pattern, his hands
fit the wood into a clamp, align with the saw an extension
of himself, reciting Keats as he makes a six-sided box, corners
interlocked like fingers, and with a tiny tip, traces
a thread of glue to bond all surfaces, taps nails as surety.
Shakes coffee cans for hinges; from a nail, pulls a rope
to knot for handles. He breathes blessings into the wood
as he cuts top from bottom like her little life cut from us.
Sands and oils for rich luster, its aura, a comfort for the family
to trace the grain, bend to kiss, the fragrance like her sweetness.
~
She will be lowered into black dirt free of rocks
dug by her grandfather and uncles. They will hold hands
at the family cemetery where she will lie with other infants
and ancestors. Word-of-mouth will spread that Grover made
the coffin. In time, a daughter will brave a call for a pine box
for her father handmade rather than ordered from Costco.
~
There in the corner stands his own box partially made
to remind him he has a place — chokes on his prayer,
“God forbid I survive my wife.”

If You Hear My Voice...
~2011

~1~
On a snow-fringed hillside overlooking the Pacific,
a black rotary dial nests inside a lone telephone booth.
~2~
There was only an eight to ten-minute warning.
~3~
A grandfather salvaged an old metal and glass structure
from thousands of abandoned ones in a field,
set it in his garden, a cenotaph for his family who drowned.
~4~
Eighty miles off northeastern Japan, a 9.0 earthquake
thrust from the ocean floor. Two years later,
the beaten hull of a fishing skiff reached California.
~5~
A frayed cord connects the receiver.
Black numbers spin on coins of white paint.
~6~
Snow fell the day of the disaster,
iced all roads out.
~7~
Hello, hello, are you there? Are you cold?
Be alive somewhere, anywhere,
words misted in sea spray.
~8~
Waves thirteen stories high crushed
thousands fleeing in cars.
~9~
Daily, he refreshed incense, rice, fruit
on his home altar trying to fill his hollowness.

~10~
Twenty thousand dead, six thousand injured,
three thousand missing, quarter million unhoused.
~11~
News spread of the phone booth. Early spring, cherry blossoms
whitened his garden. A woman in a puffy pink parka arrived,
full of loneliness swept from silent rooms.
She opened and closed the bifold door, sat for a moment.
As she dialed, she murmured their old number.
~12~
On a blue night meadowed with stars, a young man approached
in flip-flops and shorts. Speak to me, my son. Let me hear you say
I love you, Papa. I am so sorry I could not save you.
~13~
The Fukushima nuclear plant spewed radiation
into sea life for miles, for years.
~14~
The evening sun slides into its fire. Harvest over,
an old farmer stands before the door. Farmers hold their words,
for crops do not speak. Do you have enough to eat?
Don’t worry about me. You go on. I’ll find you.
~15~
Do you think Grandfather heard us?