BICYCLING TO WORK IN HEAVY RAIN

Stepping beyond the dryness,
I commit myself to the rain.

After a few miles of doubt,
distinctions cease to exist.

I arrive not caring
whether I am wet or dry.

Of Cobbler and Unions... Remembering my grandmother, Rosa Gaynell Burns Loper

My poem, "Of Cobbler and Unions," appeared in the Southern Voice section of Deep South Magazine.  You can find it here.

The poem is based on events in the life of my grandmother, Rosa Gaynell Burns Loper.  Grandma was a petite woman-- about 5 feet tall and probably around 100 pounds.  Like most kids, I never gave much thought to her life; to what she did when she wasn't being my grandmother.  She doted on me and my sister whenever we went to Texarkana to visit her and Grandpa.  Many of the memories I have of her revolve around food-- butter beans, Mexican cornbread, fried okra, and, of course, peach cobbler.  Certain smells also bring back memories.  She worked in a pickling plant-- I remember the smell of pickles as she came in the back door after work.  And, Noxzema, which she always used before bed.  Thankfully, these memories outweigh the memory of her after dementia had set in.  But, just as she didn't recognize us anymore when she was suffering from dementia, neither did she seem to be my grandmother-- at least not the one who had played with us, made delicious meals, or gone to the racetrack with us.  It was many years after she had died that I learned from my mother that Grandma had helped lead the effort to unionize the plant she worked in.  It was kind of hard to imagine this tiny, soft spoken Southern woman as a labor activist.  But, she had an incredible amount of pride and respect for hard work, as did Grandpa.  Both had come from families that, like many Southern landowning families, had fallen on hard times after the Civil War and the years and decades that followed.  Both knew they were working class, but also knew that didn't require subservience.  Hard work, honesty, ethics, and fair treatment and respect for others.  Those were what my grandparents passed down to my mother, my aunt, and all of us grandkids.  Oh, and a love for peach cobbler.

Fortunes 2014: April

Pray for what you want, but work for the things you need.

Your mentality is alert, practical and analytical.

The night life is for you.

You are loyal to your family.

THIS ANCIENT MOUNTAIN

This ancient mountain, hundreds of millions of years

wearing down to the sea from which we crawled,

its towering peaks lost in unfathomable time.

Did our web-footed ancestors gasp their first breaths

in reverence and awe when they saw this land?

How could they not?  I stand atop this hill,

entranced as much by the thought

of what is no longer here,

as by the landscape that I can see,

the creek meandering across its alluvial plain

to the granite ledges of the Fall Line,

flowing to the Coastal Plain and then to the sea.

And, you and me, can we measure our lives as this hill?

The towering grandeur gone, slipped away by time,

sharpness rounded to a comfortable slope.

FORTUNES 2014: MARCH

Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.

The only rose without a thorn is friendship.

Birds are entangled by their feet and men by their tongues.

He who hurries cannot walk with dignity.

SUNDAY NIGHT, I LIE IN BED

Sunday night, I lie in bed,

tomorrow’s work will come too soon.

Saturday, I basked in warm sun.

Tonight, the wind whips round the eaves.

Though almost April,
cherry blossoms have not yet formed.

Spring seems to be elusive.

I think of a day two springs ago,

hold the memory tight lest it blow away. 

MEDITATION

Silence soft in prayer-clasped hands—peace settles.

Release nettled thoughts and

sift away time’s dull demands.

Worries, naught but grains of sand.