N. P. M: featuring Hot Springs AR poets

~~ the lateVerna Lee Hinegardner, one of the poets featured in this post~~

 

From the 1992 collection, Echoes from the Valley: Selected poems by Roundtable Poets of Hot Springs, Arkansas, I have chosen a post full of pieces.

                AFTER A NIGHT OF THUNDERSTORMS – by Jeanie Carter

Day began badly enough:

creek threatening our newly seeded lawn,

digital clocks blinking twelve a.m.

and my watch stopped at four;

kids cranky, losing socks and throwing up,

and you, humid as the day outside,

blaming me for all the wrong.

Late for work,

I skidded a curve

and caught the bluebird

smack against my windshield.

It slid only to mid-hood

and lay, a quiet blue,
big as the car beneath it.

~~

                THE SONGS ARE AS VARIED AS THE PEOPLE WHO SING THEM – Mary Lou Gipson, deceased

 When Arkansas drew territorial lines

Where stately pines and mountain ranges spread,

The rugged men could read the tell-tale signs

That Statehood born of greatness lay ahead.

They wrote our songs of valleys lush and green,

Of fields that ripen in the summer sun;

Of rivers flowing through the delta scene,

Heroic men and battles they have won.

Across the years we hear the voices ring --

Sad prison songs of men who broke the law;

Of love gone wrong, of home, but when we sing

Of happiness, we sing of Arkansas.

     With bonds of brotherhood that make us strong
     Arkansans face the future with a song.
~~

                X AND O – Verna Lee Hinegardner, deceased

When Mama wrote me long ago

her X and O

meant kiss and hug.

I felt so snug

within her warm contagious zeal

that I could peel

away life’s crust

and dine on trust.

My Mama left a legacy,

her recipe:

for total bliss,

just hug and kiss.

[Mrs. Hinegardner invented the Minute pattern: 60 syllables--her husband named it.]

~~

                DUST IN THE WIND – Bruce Alan MacPherson, deceased

I stand

Watching the dust

Lending form to the wind

Blowing away Empires, Idols,

And Kings.

                ALL THINGS PASSING – Sr. M. Ricarda McGuire, deceased

Because you sparkled sunshine through my glooms

and laced my melancholy with bright shafts

of cheer, I came to think that loneliness

was exorcised forever from my life.

I did not know that hurt could strike again,

like devastating, adolescent grief.

I thought I had been healed and immunized.

I never knew remission was not cure.

~~

                UN-FULFILLED – Opal Jane O’Neal, deceased

 Old dreams

tiptoe across

the winter of my years;

stark starving redbirds tracking up

my snow.

~~

                TRIBUTE TO THE POETS – Nina Tillery

I admired you, Joyce Kilmer, for thinking

a tree could wear a coronet of birds

lovelier than lines winding through patches

of citrons and cucumbers sprinkled

with silver sugar. Those were the years

when honeydew was damp on my earlobes

and I was not amazed at my own

lightness and joy. But I shop carefully

now when buying more than bread. I dig
for herbs and mango root, hoeing onion
patches, rows of carrots – a hungry
mouth filled with tartness when I spot

the hawk drifting and when the sundown
shadows turn pearl against my face. Tell me,
Joyce, when the hammers that built your house
lay quiet, did you not turn from the trees
to caress the tiny bronzed infant
burrowing into your chest?”
~~