Featured Poet





Libby Falk Jones

( Kentucky )

I.

I sleep until 10, drugged with dreams, 
then cut watermelon, last of the season, and make tea.  
We open drapes, prowl the house for sun.  
The lake’s as still as the dead mage 
in the last book of Earthsea, rooted, like him, 
in a bottom we only imagine.  
A bird flies by the window, clock hums, 
computer hums.  My bruised toe calls itself 
to my attention, but otherwise I’m full and calm.  
There is a life that breathes, 
contemplating grapes grown heavy 
with sugar, waiting to be gathered, 
the muscadines, scuppernongs, 
concords of the North Carolina fall.

II.

The lake’s engulfed by fog, 
dim morning light creeps through the door.  
We fill to empty –  
emptiness of spent, riding past dark, 
emptiness of silence, here in the treetops.  
Empty’s lean, you can make a quick getaway, 
change course at will.  
But empty’s also out of gas, depleted.  
Let us be empty as the rhododendron, 
its one bud brave in October, 
let us be open to possibility, 
to what will later seem 
destiny but now, not known, is freedom.  
Let us empty as a spring pours over rocks, 
drops of regeneration 
welling from the source.  In fog a light gleams, 
in silence a word sounds.

III.

My feet are cold all night, hip aches, 
I twist beneath the sheet, blanket, spread, quilt.  
So generations slept
or tried to sleep.  At dawn I wander the quiet house 
in socks, drink tea in a white mug.  What secrets lie 
behind the wood planks of the walls, 
under the appliquéd bedspread, inside the empty 
kitchen cabinet?  The lake is absolutely still, 
leaves quiver but I do not know their tongue.  
I snap a photo up the driveway, light glowing 
on the rail, that way lies the world.  Here, 
time’s stopped, I count the days 
not knowing their true names.


IV.

Running at dusk, my feet grow warm, 
light glows through leaves.  The way at first is up, 
then down, I circle circles, glimpse water just below.  
A steady climb, nuts under feet.  Above, 
a dozen buzzards swoon, 
so close I pause, run in place, while they soar placidly.  
I can count the fingers on their wings – 
they dance just beyond my fingers, 
as will Cassiopeia after dark – 
as do the spirits now with us in this place –  
Grandpere, Granddad, Aunt Non, Uncle Dick.  
Above the sailplane field near Benton, 
men hang among clouds, silver wings still circling.  
My feet turn. 
Cooling down, I gather pine cones, 
one red leaf.  


V.
 
The lake turns blue, green reflections deepen, 
tinged with red.  Motorboats are still, sailboat sits, 
I sit, one leaf sifts by my window.  
Somewhere someone is moving 
but not here.  
The tangles in my mind smooth out, 
lift their heads to the sun.  


VI.

I’ve found a big teapot in the pantry, 
figured out just how to smack the microwave 
to start it.  I’ve gotten used to elevenses, 
to buzzards overhead, 
shadows on the lake,
one lonesome dog who lopes beside me 
on my runs.  In silence 
I’ve watched geese curve along the shore, 
red spider swing from a branch.   I’ve used up 
what we brought, in emptiness heard voices well up 
from some deeper place.  Tomorrow we’ll 
pack our clothes, load the car 
with bags of books and grapes, clean the house, 
snap one last photo of the lake, 
give back our visitors’ pass – 
head home.

Crossing Borders

Mexican squatters near the line don’t own 
but they want, 
they slap the woodboard and tin together 
and hope, string wires for one light bulb 
from the house down the hill.
For guests they make soup, each bowl 
with two meatballs in watery broth, 
outside the thinnest dog stirs 
not a whisper from the caged parrot, 
the dust glides by.

Back home in Kentucky
at the grocery store deli 
a large woman wants processed cheese 
and ham, her daughter squirms, drops 
chewed crackers on the floor, 
“I cayunt,” pure Appalachian 
at age two.

Indigenous others are easier to love, 
the music of Spanish chatter, 
dance of dark fingers plucking quail feathers 
from thin bones.
A photo of my father in a doorway of some
white historical place: frail, 
erect in his suit,
he was his face, 
hollow bones under my hands.

  

At Vacation Bible School

“Jesus to the Rescue,” hand-lettered sign proclaims,
6 to 8, Berea United, each night this August week.
Will he bound through meadows like a St.Bernard
with richly curling mane, neck weighed down
 by brandy cask, feet more delicate than paws?  
Thunder in like Tonto, bareback, on white horse? 
Gallop up like Lone Ranger, calling out to Silver? 
(Horse travel’s chancy in those long white robes.) 
Slide head into plastic helmet, feet into red 
rubber boots, then scramble up that ladder? 
Sirens howl, hidden orchestra crashes 
into William Tell, lights pierce the dark, 
bystanders gasp as the Son of God pulls off 
another grab.  Satan, damp those flames.

____________________


Libby Falk Jones, professor of English at Berea College, teaches courses in creative, academic, and professional writing. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Low Explosions: Writings on the Body, New Growth: Recent Kentucky Writings, Connecticut Review, 13th Moon: A Feminist Literary Journal, and the Alhambra Poetry Calendar 2008, among others. She is currently working on two collections of poems and a memoir on growing up in south Louisiana.