Beside the Altamaha River by Susan Beall Summers (Where I Live Poetry & Photography Series)

Beside the Altamaha River
by Susan Beall Summers

My home is way down below
that Mason-Dixie Line
beside the Altamaha River
where time slows
under tall pines.
Air thick and sticky as molasses.
It’s a fishing, hunting, farming life
where folks know the art
of preserving summer harvests.
Bushels of peas shelled on porches,
corn shucked on tailgates.
Sand pears become preserves;
briar berries become cobbler, jelly,
and homemade wine.
Everywhere clouds of gnats,
relentless mosquitos,
and incessant cicada sounds.
Languid evenings,
long conversations
deepen into nights.
Owls demand answers,
crickets accompany
amphibian chorus,
a sweet lullaby.

NOTE FROM THE POET: My heart lives in Jeff Davis County, Georgia. I was born there; it lives in me. No matter how long I’m Texan or where else I live or how “citified” I become, that land is “home.” I cannot speak to any other place as where I live. I have a home near Austin, Texas, which I do love, but, in the bigger picture, it’s just a place I’m visiting. I may reside other places, I’m always a backwoods Georgia girl at heart. 

PHOTOGRAPH: “Eason’s Landing at Altamaha River, Jeff Davis County, Georgia, USA” by Mike “Bird” Strickland. Used by permission.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Susan Beall Summers has been writing poetry from a young age. Her first collection of poetry, Friends, Sins & Possibilities, was published in 2011 by DreamersThree Press. Currently, she is a video journalist for Texas Nafas on Channel Austin public access television. She is an active Austin poet, member of Austin Poets International, Austin Poetry Society, and Writer’s League of Texas. She is also a ghostwriter and editor. Her poems appear in Ilya’s Honey, Texas Poetry Calendar, Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku and Haiga, Harbinger Asylum, Baylor’s Beall House of Poetry, Small Canyons Anthology, Austin Poet International’s Di-Verse-City, and others. Visit her at www.tidalpoolpoet.com.

The Wind Blows, poem by Galaktion Tabidze

THE WIND BLOWS
by Galaktion Tabidze

Blowing wind, blowing wind, blowing wind,
Leaves are swept along its path…
Rows of trees, armies of trees bend and sway
Where are you, where are you, where are you?

How it rains, how it snows, how it snows
You are not to be found!
Your image follows me, haunts me
Everywhere, every moment, always!

A distant sky seeps misty thoughts…
Blowing wind, blowing wind, blowing wind!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Galaktion Tabidze (1892–1959), born in Georgia, then part of Imperial Russia, was a leading Georgian poet of the twentieth century whose writings profoundly influenced all subsequent generations of Georgian poets. He survived Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge of the 1930s, which claimed lives of many of his fellow writers, friends and relatives, but came under heavy pressure from the Soviet authorities. (Read more at wikipedia.org.)

The Garden, poem by Shel Silverstein

THE GARDEN
By Shel Silverstein

Ol’ man Simon, planted a diamond,

Grew hisself a garden the likes of none.

Sprouts all growin’, comin’ up glowin’,

Fruit of jewels all shinin’ in the sun.

Colors of the rainbow,

See the sun and rain grow

Sapphires and rubieson ivory vines,

Grapes of jade, just

Ready for the squeezin’ into green jade wine.

Pure gold corn there,

Blowin’ in the warm air,

Ol’ crow nibblin’ on the amethyst seeds.

In between the diamonds, ol’ man Simon

Crawls about pullin’ out platinum weeds.

Pink pearl berries,

All you can carry,

Put ’em in a bushel and

Haul ’em into town.

Up in the tree there’s

Opal nuts and gold pears—
Hurry quick, grab a stick

And shake some down.

Take a silver tater,

Emerald tomater,

Fresh plump coral melons

Hangin’ in reach.

Ol’ man Simon,

Diggin’ in his diamonds,

Stops and rests and dreams about

One…real…peach.

Illustration:  Georgia Peaches, Vintage Fruit Crate Label Art postcard, available for just 88 cents at zazzle.com.

Wisdom from Flannery O’Connor

“There is a certain embarrassment about being a storyteller in these times when stories are considered not quite as satisfying as statements and statements not quite as satisfying as statistics; but in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells.”

FLANNERY O’CONNOR (1925-1964)

Illustration: Flannery O’Connor street art, Chicago, photo by Billy Craven, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Note: Who would have thought that you’d find a street art portrait of Flannery O’Connor? Shout out to my beloved hometown Chicago — as always, you are one classy place!  Above, I’ve noted Flannery O’Connor’s years of birth and passing. Yes, she only lived to age 39 — and many of those years she had to endure intense pain from lupus. Yet, she always found a way to write. As she put it to a friend, “I have enough energy to write with and as that is all I have any business doing anyhow, I can with one eye squinted take it all as a blessing.” 

Marilyn Monroe Covered in Smiles

Earlier today, I posted folk artist Howard Finster‘s painting of Marilyn Monroe draped in a flag. Above is another Finster portrait of Marilyn. The notations shed light on Finster’s symbols, such as the women flying through the air (“Woman power from earth into space”). A limited edition print of this charming portrait is currently for sale on ebay ($795) — see this link.

Finster, a Baptist minister who lived in Georgia, also created album covers for Talking Heads and R.E.M. He passed on to the great easel in the sky in  2001 at age 84 — after creating over 46,000 pieces of art during his colorful lifetime.