This week's Poet of the People is the Bard of Cedar Creek, Jane Zenger. Jane, is a legend from the Pee Dee to the Broad to infinity and beyond. She is a force of nature - an organizer, educator, environmentalist, small farmer, who also happens to be an excellent poet. A gifted storyteller, Jane will make you laugh and gasp in the same stanza. Buy her book, Night Bloomer, and know she is a life well-lived.
Jane Zenger lives in Blythewood, SC in an old forest on the edge of Cedar Creek . She has a BA in English literature and a Ph.D. in Reading and Literacy. Jane studied poetry at USC with the late James Dickey and her work is included in his book, From the Green Horseshoe. She was a feature writer and poetry editor for Auntie Bellum, a feminist magazine published in South Carolina. She also edited The Spotlight, a journal dedicated to at risk youth, teen pregnancy, and dropout prevention. She worked as an English/Reading teacher in both urban and rural South Carolina schools and was a USC instructor, researcher and director of federal Teacher Quality Enhancement programs. As an undergraduate she did archaeological research on an early man site through The University of Alaska. She also worked on a USC environmental impact study on the coast. Jane has worked in Texas, China and Zambia. She is a passionate advocate of the Spoken Word
movement in South Carolina and has recently completed Night Bloomer from Muddy Ford Press. This new book of poetry reflects love, heartbreak, travel adventures, comical events, and always- her close connection the woods and creeks where she lives.
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The Unraveling
What is there to love in a world unraveling?
It’s unsafe to put such precious cargo as a heart
and soul in the broken box of my body.
I can’t stop thinking on this cold spring day,
watching the creek overflow, what’s next?
There are the same old wars waging,
the same fires we extinguish over and over
sprouting up again, rising from a mystical phoenix.
The same old hate and anger boils over.
Wars I can’t smash, bury, ignore or accept.
The wrong people are making the same choices
over and over. When their choices bully me, I resist.
In the world that kind of ignorant selfishness
leads to loss and division, disease and death.
What century is this where the infantile, selfish,
and belligerent still retain power?
When is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius
that we were promised?
On this afternoon I flow through the meadow.
I wish I could punch the clouds full of acid rain.
I won’t punch the clean willowy ones after an April storm,
or the ones today glowing pink, orange and purple at sunset.
I drop to the ground face down to experience the
soil scent and the soft grass and clover. I sense another
world upside down, feel a mild wind, the old buck snorts,
I hear distant airplanes and at least five, no- six bird calls
and something chirping. The crows acknowledge me and
buzzards form a wide circle. My cats gather round curious,
but not really caring why I am upside down. They wait,
preening and watching the birds so as not to waste time.
So fortunate in their blissful oblivion.
Whip Lash in the Pandemic
I can be blistered in the sun one day,
and frozen from the inside out the next,
losing my footing in the turbulence.
I feel like a kitten in her mother's mouth
being dragged and bumped, helpless.
But at least I am not left behind.
I have to find myself again every morning.
Find the humor in how I am going down.
It is a whip lash and I am serving time for all my sins.
Encourage me. Discourage me. Ignore me. Adore me.
It’s all the same. The tide is always running out.
The sky is winter pale, nothing on either horizon.
Baby birds are blown out of the nest,
trying to fly, only to be eaten by my feral cat
Other creatures waiting below.
My body is broken as well- from the day
I tried, stiff and weak, to fly after so much time
quarantined, sequestered, afraid.
This is the year of one pandemic after another.
This sorrow bangs me like a limb on a window pane.
I am not shattered yet, stubborn as I am.
From my perch let's examine today,
the joy of being alive, of being loved helps.
I am mining memories. Someone is
reminding me to breathe...sing...cry…reach out.
Selfish choices placed me on this precipice,
tethered to the vows I made. That life is over.
I live for love and I long to live. Yes, you may come in.
It Only Takes a Moment to Die
When you took your last breath
It was so simple
So calm and unanticipated
So remarkably
Like any other day
Like a wisp of a cloud
On a clear sky
I knew the time was near
I knew the moment would be
yours only.
Unpredictable.
Controlling death as you did our life.
I slipped away for just a moment.
Stepped alone into the morning air.
You stepped alone into eternal peace.
For death, like life, is an unpredictable gift.