Premonition

After Mark Strand

That morning the sun roamed across the swamp
turning the mud into jelly,
and under branches of the trees, the yellow trees,
a young woman walked, and for an instant

the future came to her:
rain falling into her mother’s grave, rain
falling in the eyes of her unborn children, my own
mouth filled with tears, winter finches migrating,

a man in her room waiting for her to come
home, the morning moon’s shadow drifts
past a woman, pausing under the trees,
thinking of him thinking of her.

Alice & Bessie

Say what you must
about the strong Black
woman—melanin superpowered
cheating time with their smooth faces.

But let’s say a word here for these two:
Alice & Bessie: The Alphabet Women,
Ain’t yo’ Mammy or yo’ Auntie.
Alice & Bessie: Alpha & Beta
Warriors fully girded
with the whole armor of God.

We will still say they are strong,
not know that when you’re weak
is when you’re strong and though the delicate
frozen multiplication of cells holds its breath,
it eventually exhales to an unthawing, cells
spreading like dandelions in the wind
finding any slit of concrete to squeeze into
and grow and grow and grow and grown
full on the sidewalk, which by now is full
of dandelions who gently blow away
one by one by one by one.

In memory of Alice Ann Eaddy and Bessie Chandler

Ars Poetica: COVID-19

The blank page.

Work all day, but what do I give
myself? The blank page stares, and I stare
back, trying to write myself
into myself. I have so much and yet I give
so little. I obsess with my teaching and my to do
lists. I’ve been taking three breaths and praying
before my work as a calming practice. It works.

What do I have to give my art
at the end of the day? The blank page
is trying to call me back, but then all
I want to do is rest and watch Netflix.
Netflix is not the work of the imagination.

Creativity cries for me to be unafraid,
to shake off the shackles of grief
to stop throwing a perpetual pity
party and to finally say: Yes. Peace.
I can work all day and give myself
to the blank page… still. And I can wait
until tomorrow, if it comes to me, for
another blank page: another gift,
another way to show my gratitude.

Inspired by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie’s Dear Continuum: Letters to a Poet Crafting Liberation, Letter Seven

Jennifer Bartell received the MFA in Poetry from the University of South Carolina. Her poetry and nonfiction has been published in Callaloo, PLUCK!, Blackberry, As/Us, Fall Lines, The Raleigh Review, Jasper Magazine, the museum americana, Limelight, Scalawag, and Kakalak, among others. An alumna of Agnes Scott College, Jennifer has fellowships from The Teachers Guild, Callaloo, and The Watering Hole. She teaches at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, where she was named the 2019-20 Teacher of the Year.