Two Poems Recently Published -- Four More "Accepted for Publication"

A poem begins like a wild apple growing -- from a delicate blossom that's around briefly.

 

A good day for me is when I write a poem that I feel is -- yes, good. It's also nice to have them published. That's the whipped cream on the hot fudge brownie sundae. Or, with the upcoming Caledonia County Fair and the Robillard family's historic gifts in mind, the vanilla ice cream on the apple crisp.

If you haven't taken time to follow the links that I place on Facebook, here are the two most recent published poems of mine. I hope they echo in your thoughts to something vital of your own.

In the summer issue of New Feathers Anthology, which I hope you'll visit by tapping here to see the amazing image they've paired with this, is "My Mother, 1937."

My Mother, 1937

 

Bewildered farm girl with a dying mother (cancer, too late):

ignored, she clung to Lucky Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight,

hoarded newspaper articles about Amelia Earhardt,

refused to beg her cocky cousins for attention—

she could claim the future, sky high, better than theirs. When

death landed as predicted, love retreated into

the unreal hardness of one frozen knuckle (they made her

kiss it). Amelia, she told herself. Amelia would do this

without falling. Her cousins watched, whispered.

 

Amelia, a borrowed badge, a resonant insistence. Next month

her father said “Your mother’s cousin Ruth arrives on Tuesday,

to be your new mother.” Thrust a photo into her hand. That night

she lay sleepless in the bed, next to where her real mother

used to sit, stroke her hair, sing good night. The next evening

the radio hissed, coughed, spat out news: Earhardt lost. Airplane

vanished. Fog. Feared drowned. Lost, lost, lost.

“Stepmother” came just like Hansel and Gretel’s story, strict, tall,

declining soft clothes or embraces. Never call her Mommy!

Be a lady, little Joan. No more running or jumping. No lady wears

goggles or a helmet. Gloves are for Sundays. Not air controls.

 

Each night, after dark, her heart and mind refused to behave.

Flying, falling, weeping.

 

BK

 

This will also be available in print! Watch for news of that.

 

There's a very different poem in After Happy Hours Review, inspired by the gift of a 3-inch wooden box with hinged lid that contains three sand dollars. (Thank you, neighbors!) It keys in with a very dangerous experience I've described in my memoir pieces on Medium, where someone I now call The Villain hoped to terrify me on a small boat out in Casco Bay, Maine. It was quite effective but not as quickly as he wanted. Well, we all make some bad choices, and learn from them to make better ones.

 

 

Sand Dollars in a Small Wooden Box 

 

This is wealth: three delicate sand dollars, gray, pale,

tucked in a tiny wooden box. Souvenirs of a friend’s

beach rambles. Surfaces shedding fine gold-gray sand

with every touch. See, she whispered, here is the mouth

centered within the five-petaled surface. And here,

the anus. Algae in, remainders out. I, who never held

a live sand dollar, never witnessed one propel itself

through wet sand,  spurting, spined, moist, stroked again

the rough emery finish, the grained surface, and settled these

(three, for luck or love) into their container.

 

The mind, they say, is a curious thing; the brain, surely so.

Wet, questioning, curled in its own tidal pool, saltwater

and moon collaborating. My fingers are sliced open by a net

of knowledge; dampen my morning with dreamy details.

In its dry casket, a sand dollar is a skeleton of a sea urchin

bereft of nourishment and moisture. Of impulse. It had spines.

It digested. It explored, left larvae, expelled exhilaration

plucking a single note of life, life, life. Hunger accompanies

harmony. Lift this to the tongue. The sand dollar tastes of

salt and secrets. See, here is my mouth. Lost on a raw

Atlantic beach, say in Maine, where cold winds rip

and the surge of water overwhelms, I screamed. Once,

someone tried to drown me. Now my fingers, five parts

scratching and scrabbling, spread like the sand dollar—

scrape at the sand, scramble toward skeletal certainty.

When I’m finished, I’ll wait in that little wooden box.

 

BK

 

If you like to listen to a poet's voice with the words, tap here for the read-aloud version. 

 

And oh yes, I have four more "accepted for publication" in the future. That's like, umm, homemade chocolate chip cookies waiting in the freezer for a special moment.

At the Caledonia County Fair ...

  

Winds of Freedom Book 3 Is Coming This Autumn!

The Bitter and the Sweet, the third book in my Winds of Freedom series (after The Long Shadow and This Ardent Flame), should be in print by early November -- maybe sooner! -- from All Things That Matter Press. I know it's been a long wait (thanks to, you know, COVID). So I thought I'd give you a bit of a recap of what the young ladies of North Upton (in real life, North Danville) Vermont have been doing in the 1850s, as Vermont is seized by a passion for Abolition ... that is, the legal abolition of slavery in a nation that had profited in many ways from enslavement for two centuries.

But of course, for northern Vermont teenagers, that's not initially the focus of their attention!

Here's what went on in 1850 in The Long Shadow (can be ordered here or as an ebook here):

THE LONG SHADOW Synopsis

 

            ALICE SANBORN, age 15 in March of 1850, is the youngest member of her family and the only one not taking a stand on Abolition. In her Vermont village of North Upton, she and her best friends – JERUSHAH, whose family owns the tavern, and SARAH, a younger black girl who is waiting in Vermont for negotiations to free the rest of her family from slavery down South – are more interested in maple sugaring and the arrival of spring than in politics. Still, Alice sees enough to guess that her married brother WILLIAM is conspiring with messenger SOLOMON McBRIDE to protect fugitive slaves. 

            When a slave-hunter reaches the area, Alice’s father sends the three girls, driven by Solomon, to a nearby large town to stay briefly with the elegant MISS FARROW, herself a former slave.  But the slave-hunter spies on Solomon and follows them. The girls elude danger, as Alice starts their horse and carriage north. Solomon sends the slave-hunter on a false trail, catches up with the girls, and drives them farther, despite snow, bad roads, and a catamount.

            By the time the girls reach sanctuary with the HAYES family of Free Blacks near the Canadian border, Jerushah and Sarah are desperately ill. Solomon leaves on his own mission. Alice meets the challenges of helping Mrs. Hayes nurse her friends. CHARLES HAYES startles Alice by laying hands in prayer onto Sarah; he offers the same for Jerushah, but Alice declines on her behalf, unsure her friend would want this.

            Sarah recovers and is happy to stay with the Hayes household to await her own family. But Solomon visits and persuades Alice that Jerushah, still fretful and frail, needs to return to her own mother. Solomon, Alice, and Jerushah endure a storm, flooding, and wolves to drive home. Along the way, Alice learns about Solomon’s freedom-fighting work and considers becoming an active Abolitionist herself – a role that won’t fit her father’s view that the Union of states is more important than freeing slaves.

            The return proves disastrous: Jerushah suffers a relapse, and blame falls on Alice. Although Jerushah’s family won’t let Alice visit, there is an almost-forgotten tunnel that links Alice’s home to the tavern. With help from Jerushah’s brother MATTHEW, the two girls reconnect and begin to leave messages for each other. Alice is dismayed to realize that Jerushah’s friendship for her includes expectations of long-term affection and living together as “spinsters,” a situation Alice does not desire. At the same time, the girls’ brothers – William and Matthew – ask Alice to help in the risky transport of documents that Solomon needs for men escaping slavery and headed to Vermont.

Alice learns to navigate the tunnel even in the dark. But Jerushah’s too fragile to do that, and when she tries to, she takes a terrible fall. Is it Alice’s fault again? All this guilt burdens Alice, and being part of Solomon’s righteous efforts can’t dispel the darkness.

  * * *         

 To learn how it all works out, of course, you need to read the book! (If I told you here, that would really be a spoiler, wouldn't it?)

 

Watch for news about The Bitter and the Sweet, coming soon!