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.
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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
