This week's Poet of the People is Ann-Chadwell Humphries. Ann declares that she is from the earth and belongs here. She is a force of nature - granite sparkling in the sun. Silica and alkali metal oxides stirred in the magma of life's challenges, congealed into the poet, Ann-Chadwell Humphries. I am honored to call her a friend.
Ann-Chadwell Humphries, a blind poet from Columbia, SC, was selected by Muddy Ford Press to publish her first collection, An Eclipse and A Butcher. She has twice been a finalist for the Carrie McCray Nickens and once for the Julia Mood Peterkin poetry contests. She won Syzygy’s Emerging Voice Award, sponsored by The Jasper Project, for “An Eclipse and A Butcher.” She is a speaker scholar for South Carolina Humanities and her papers are archived at USC Special Collections Library.
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Thirteen Ways of Looking Through Darkness
~If it's darkness we're having, let it be extravagant — Jane Kenyon
I
At the fire-fringed margins of the universe,
Images of the origins of light stream
Through the eye of a gold-plated telescope.
II
I am fluent in Light and Dark.
The demise of my retina
Reveals infinite sentient worlds.
III
When illumined, darkness loses its dominion.
Technology renders the unseeable, seeable.
IV
Lightness and darkness
Are one.
As much in the mind as in space
They are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of resilience
Or the beauty of interdependence,
The odyssey into the unknown
Or the transcendence thereof.
VI
The freight of low expectations
Slow-grinds the human spirit.
The only way around is through.
VII
O voice of self-doubt and discouragement
Why do you shout?
Why do I listen?
Why dismiss the universe
Of riches there for the taking?
VIII
I have wandered outermost reaches
And territories of resistance,
And come to exalt
The company of Darkness.
IX
Infrared waves send images
Of unprecedented clarity
Through the lens of the deep space telescope.
X
Reticular spirals and arcs
Flower in the womb of morning.
Bots of importunity align.
XI
When I was diagnosed, doctors advised
That I not overthink; I could prepare.
Not chase cures in China nor Europe—
for They knew I would
Go to the ends of the universe.
XII
I have learned to see with my feet, my ears, my skin.
Import my imagination.
My heart is not blind.
XIII
Years of tests, classes, cursors, prisms
led me on an arduous journey
into the gravitational pull of blindness—
my new orbit—frisson from the cosmology of sight.
Wildflower Trail
Overgrazed ranch land proffers rare views
of blue hills that rumple and bunch until fracture
on the fault line into limestone cliffs, spring jeweled
water from chambered aquifers into creeks,
into rivers fringed with cypress tresses combed
by wind, siren temptress, intoxicant to tourists
and retirees. Overnight, bare-boned water and sewer lines
incise hillsides, weave asphalt webs of infrastructure
for tract housing between Austin and San Antonio.
My parents succumb, lured by open spaces, slower paces
and light-filled rooms of new construction, new appliances—
fresh start from hard work. My father plants cedar elm
for shade, Blue Italian Cyprus for windbreak—
this is Texas harsh—and as trees grow, so grows development:
Methodist church, elementary school off the bypass,
doctors’ office complex within walking distance.
In the undeveloped acreage behind, my father hangs
a blue gate shaped like the Alamo, drags a mower
through that gate to mow walking trails, shortcuts to church.
In March, the field flames in airy wildflowers which wave
fiesta-colored blooms to passersby on the farm-to-market road.
And in their yard, my father trims the bluebonnet patch
that spreads each year as if inviting flower kin. In that seasonal
profusion, my parents host a wildflower brunch for neighbors
and library friends for guests to wade waist-high amid bliss.
The Coffin Maker
An occasional call with plea and please for a coffin
tomorrow or day after for a friend’s stillborn granddaughter.
His motion slow and solemn, he sorts through his pile
of special wood favored to repurpose. Finds an orphaned
burled walnut he had forgotten, hardwood not too heavy
for something this small. He makes a pattern, his hands
fit the wood into a clamp, align with the saw an extension
of himself, reciting Keats as he makes a six-sided box, corners
interlocked like fingers, and with a tiny tip, traces
a thread of glue to bond all surfaces, taps nails as surety.
Shakes coffee cans for hinges; from a nail, pulls a rope
to knot for handles. He breathes blessings into the wood
as he cuts top from bottom like her little life cut from us.
Sands and oils for rich luster, its aura, a comfort for the family
to trace the grain, bend to kiss, the fragrance like her sweetness.
~
She will be lowered into black dirt free of rocks
dug by her grandfather and uncles. They will hold hands
at the family cemetery where she will lie with other infants
and ancestors. Word-of-mouth will spread that Grover made
the coffin. In time, a daughter will brave a call for a pine box
for her father handmade rather than ordered from Costco.
~
There in the corner stands his own box partially made
to remind him he has a place — chokes on his prayer,
“God forbid I survive my wife.”
If You Hear My Voice...
~2011
~1~
On a snow-fringed hillside overlooking the Pacific,
a black rotary dial nests inside a lone telephone booth.
~2~
There was only an eight to ten-minute warning.
~3~
A grandfather salvaged an old metal and glass structure
from thousands of abandoned ones in a field,
set it in his garden, a cenotaph for his family who drowned.
~4~
Eighty miles off northeastern Japan, a 9.0 earthquake
thrust from the ocean floor. Two years later,
the beaten hull of a fishing skiff reached California.
~5~
A frayed cord connects the receiver.
Black numbers spin on coins of white paint.
~6~
Snow fell the day of the disaster,
iced all roads out.
~7~
Hello, hello, are you there? Are you cold?
Be alive somewhere, anywhere,
words misted in sea spray.
~8~
Waves thirteen stories high crushed
thousands fleeing in cars.
~9~
Daily, he refreshed incense, rice, fruit
on his home altar trying to fill his hollowness.
~10~
Twenty thousand dead, six thousand injured,
three thousand missing, quarter million unhoused.
~11~
News spread of the phone booth. Early spring, cherry blossoms
whitened his garden. A woman in a puffy pink parka arrived,
full of loneliness swept from silent rooms.
She opened and closed the bifold door, sat for a moment.
As she dialed, she murmured their old number.
~12~
On a blue night meadowed with stars, a young man approached
in flip-flops and shorts. Speak to me, my son. Let me hear you say
I love you, Papa. I am so sorry I could not save you.
~13~
The Fukushima nuclear plant spewed radiation
into sea life for miles, for years.
~14~
The evening sun slides into its fire. Harvest over,
an old farmer stands before the door. Farmers hold their words,
for crops do not speak. Do you have enough to eat?
Don’t worry about me. You go on. I’ll find you.
~15~
Do you think Grandfather heard us?
