~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Anne Waters Green

The Old Smith Place

   Jersey, Arkansas

Outside walls of ship-lapped

heart pine, a roof of cedar

shingles, brick pier footings,

the house was built to keep

weather out, family safe.

To the woman, it was home

and livelihood. Her husband

had provided well, farmer,

merchant, Justice of the Peace.

When he died, their younger

children still at home, she

earned their bread as

as the village postmistress.

Boxes with glass panes

and combination locks

stretched across her hall.

A window shelf with bell

welcomed folks who walked

right in to collect their mail.

All rang the chime because

no one knew the combinations.

Besides, calling for Miz Jim gave

a chance to swap family news,

hear the latest gossip. Porches

graced both front and back, one

for evening talk when work was done,

dishes washed and dried, the other

for chores, stringing beans, shelling peas.

Large rooms flanked the hall,

on one side her bedroom

where the woman had birthed

babies; on the other, the parlor

where sons and sons-in-law spun

yarns while waiting to be fed

and women gathered afternoons

to stitch on a quilting frame suspended

from hooks screwed in plaster

overhead. In the yard two wells, one

gave sweet drinking water, the other’s

fit only to douse daylilies, nandina,

black-eyed Susie. Miz Jim’s been dead

decades now, the place caved in. Heirs

stripped pine siding from inside walls

to provincialize their fancy homes.

We went one day to take a look, found brick

piers, sunken steps, a few nandinas

in the scraggly yard. And those quilting

hooks still tight in the parlor ceiling.

Time Suspended

A bald eagle hovers over Osceola Lake—

circles, soars, flaps

its mighty wings, not once descends

to snag fish or duck.

A queue of turtles suns unmolested

on a storm-downed tree.

For ten long minutes, we stand and watch,

our walk abandoned.

The eagle prefers coasting thermals

to dining. We choose

to pause, spend precious moments

gazing upward.  

Lowcountry Blues

A rosy cheeked

boy whose sandals,

shorts mimic azure eyes

squats on a blue-grained

dock.  Afternoon sun spotlights

patches of sky-colored water.

Small hands grip a handled net.

He’s on the ready, awaits the tug.

A big kid yanks the baited string,

Atlantic blue crab entangled.

Just then, he tilts his head

toward me. I click.

Anne Waters Green is a native South Carolinian now living on the Georgia coast. Retired from a long career in law, she finds joy in reading and writing poetry. Her work has appeared in Kakalak, Pisgah Review, Christian Feminism Today, Minnow and other journals and anthologies. Email: awwestbrook@bellsouth.net