THANKSGIVING IS OUR AUTHORS WHO MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE (A Cento by Sue Walker) Thanks for Bells with their stentorian tongues, the relic of a summer barely gone, river fog, wandrin’ damp and pathless under a flower moon, goldfish, frogs, and lilies and wild plum thickets. Thanks for Ham and roast turkey, stuffed eggs and watermelon pickles, old warriors, vests covered with patches, a gypsy dressed in dreams wearing a white cat, a drawer of tarnished knives. Thanks for A time before airboats and outsiders, a soft urgency for sleep, the tracery each beat and breath provides; may I never be ungrateful for any shelter, any mouthful of food or sip of water, any friendly gesture, any offer of help, any touch of understanding. Thanks for Whatever comes of love, kerosene, gasoline, Maybelline, Vaseline, beads, brass, candlesticks, cotton sheets, the sound of Anglo-Saxon laced with Latin. Thanks for The calm font of gentleness when I had given up looking; I wanted you to kiss me on the street going to a store. Thanks for Belief in the infinite scheme of things when times like lifted faces changed so slow, little cataracts of blue ice in the stream gully for the heart that waits. Thanks for The radio controlled turbo race car, memory more satisfying than cold fried chicken flowers and silk, girlish folderol and earrings big as moons. Thanks for Gulps from a sun-warmed hose small bubbles of sound, mothers, fathers, siblings, lovers— Ah! Suzette, Suzette. Thanks for Hot metal down South: beer cans, oil cans, tin trailers, rusty barrels of smoking fish, the gradual acceleration of a bird, an octant for navigating by the stars and the whole world looked new-made. Thanks for The peach overcome by her own sweet juices one moment at a time, reminiscences, poignant memories, Eudaemonia, the concept Aristotle spent much of his Nicomachaen Ethics discussing. 1. Michael Bassett: “In the Forest of Whispers,” Hatchery of Tongues 2. Vivian Smallwood,:“And Finding No Mouse There,” And Finding No Mouse There. 3. Charles Rodning: Waitin’ ‘Round the Bend 4. J. William Chambers: Collage 5. Joseph L. Whitten: “Remember Rosella Gossett Winkler After Christmas Dinner,” Learning to Tell Time 6. Mary Elizabeth Murphy: “Reflecting Faces, Blama. 7. Philip C. Kolin: “Lunar Equations,” Departures. 8. Lissa Kiernan: “The Thinning” Two Faint Lines In The Violet 9. John Davis, Jr.: Everglades Requiem,” Middleclass American Proverb. 10. Maureen Alsop: “A Willow Tree And often, A River,” Later, Knives & Trees 11. Jim Murphy: “Almost Georgic, Alabama,” The Uniform House 12. John J. Brugaletta: “Itadakimasu,” With My Head Rising Out of the Water 13. Mary Carol Moran: “Vincent Implores Her Husband,” Equivocal Blessings 14. Pat Schneider: “Mama,” Wake Up Laughing 15. Melissa Dickson: “Fourteen Fragmented Quatrains,” Sweet Aegis 16. Michael Bugeja: “Little Dragons,” Little Dragons. 17. Robert Gray: “Sermon on the Mount, Circa 2008,” Jesus Walks the Southland 18. Barry Marks: ‘Finding You,” Sounding 19. Irene Latham: “New Year’s Eve, 1988,” What Came Before 20. Kathleen Thompson: “raising rails,” The Nights, The Days 21. Harry Myers: “Hang Loose,” Let Your Mind Run Free 22. Maurice Gandy: “An Old Mobilian,” An Uncharted Inch 23. Shanan Ballam: “The Porcupine,” Pretty Marrow 24. Vivian Shipley: “No Anesthesia,” Fair Haven 25. Roger Granet: “Christmas Eve,” The World’s A Small Town 26. P.T. Paul: “Cold Fried Chicken In Cadillac Square,” To Live and Write in Dixie 27. Mark J. Mitchell: “She Says Good-Bye To A Hat,” Three Visitors 28. Patricia Harkins-Pierre: “Aunt Janet’s Legs” Prophets of Morning Light 29. Clela Reed: “Five-Thirty,” The Hero of the Revolution Serves Us Tea 30. Sue Scalf: “Star Gazer,” To Stitch A Summer Sky 31. Lloyd Dendinger: “Freud,” Autumn Legacy 32. Clavin Andre Claudel: “Ah! Suzette.” Louisiana Creole Poems 33. Carolyn Page: “Stump Sound Hollow”; Barn Flight. 34. Alison Touster-Reed: “A Little Box of Us,” Bodies 35. Diane Gardner: “Boy With Spinning Top,” Measures to Movements 36. Richard Moore: The Mouse Whole 37. Louie Skipper: “The Other Kind of Silence Left By Wind.” To Speak This Tongue 38. Alexis Saunders: “ The Truth is . . . “ A Place Never Imagined 39. Nicholas Rinaldi: “”Bunker Wedding,” The Luffwaffe En Chaos 40. James Walker, Thoughts On High School & Beyond
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 14:13:58 +0000
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