While I Waited, Life Happened

As fall approaches, this poem comes to mind. It is in my poetry book and was published on Your Daily Poem. 

While I Waited, Life Happened by Glenda Council Beall Next

In the waning days of fall vacation, leaves fly like goldfinches, poplars' jeweled showers rain upon the mountains of West Virginia. Temperatures plummet to freezing after dark, but mornings crisp as caramel apples draw us outside where cows seek sustenance burrowing beneath tall weeds bronzed by season's cold. Three horses clip remaining blades from pasture overgrazed in the drought. Smoke plumes from burning brush cut to make the raw road, drifts across the pond's mosaic surface. I find myself nostalgic for my own country roots; Soft sounds of mourning doves and lost calves calling for their mothers; riding horseback in the woods, quail flush and scare my pony; crows caw from stands of willows. Boundless days stretched before me; days of wasted youth; Hours of restless yearning, wanting always what I did not have, waiting to learn what I would become, waiting to live, oblivious to the riches I already possessed. Given a second chance, I'd hold that gift of time cupped tightly in my hands. I'd breathe, taste and savor every second I have squandered — not fritter it away, but hoard each precious minute, clutched firmly against my breast. From Now Might As Well Be Then (Finishing Line Press. 2009) Used with the author's permission.

A Child's Escape to the Barn

My readers, my friends, know that I grew up on a farm in southwest Georgia. I loved the barn on the farm. As you can tell in this poem, I found lots to be interested in. The smells, the light and darkness, the animals and just the atmosphere was comforting.

A Child’s Escape to the Barn

By Glenda Council Beall

I enter the barn through the corn crib.

Flour dusts the floor around the hand mill.

Gray mice feed on cracked kernels;

either very brave or too greedy

to notice my intrusion.

The fragrance of cottonseed meal,

heady in my nostrils, tempts me

to see if it really tastes like toasted nuts.

Light shoots into darkness through narrow

crevices between wide rough boards.

Rays seek out the spiders' lacy traps

lining corners, the angle made by roof and wall.

Chickens, fat and full, sit placid,

in straw-filled boxes hung high above

the ground, protected from predators

except one that coils, swallows their eggs.

Musty smells arise from the lot

where hard-worked mules munch on grain

in troughs held fast to cured pine walls

by hammered twenty-penny nails.

I climb the ladder to the loft.

Wide eyes of feral kittens peep

from behind bales of hay. They skitter

away, tails aloft, straight as flag poles.

Tiny English sparrows twitter and flit.

Some nest on rafters under the eaves. 

I’m a natural born citizen of this place

but they have made a home here.

Without warning a summer shower pounds

the tin roof, runs off and wets the black mix

of dung and dirt, serves me up an odor rich

with life. I'm overcome with contentment.

This poem and others similar to it will be included in the book, Paws, Claws, Hooves, Feathers and Fins, by Estelle Darrow Rice and Glenda Council Beall. Use the contact box at the top of the Sidebar to order the book at the discount price of $14.00 plus $3.00 S&H

This lovely creature has a story in the book.

I am interviewed by Joan Ellen Gage. You can read it online.

I hope you will take a minute and read an interview with me published on Joan Ellen Gage's site.

http://www.joanellengage.com/2015/03/interview-with-glenda-council-beall.html

Thanks so much, Joan, for posting my poem and for the interview. I interview others most of the time, but it was nice to be the interviewee this time. 

My Favorite Computer and Why I Love it

January 10 already. Christmas came and went, and suddenly we are in 2015. My calendar's white space is filling too fast. I have enjoyed my downtime this winter — no pressure, no deadlines, unless you count the deadlines of poetry contests I was determined to enter.

For two days I found myself organizing my documents on my old laptop. I  have done my best to go paperless, but I have problems finding what I filed. Maybe it is the way I title my files. Or, maybe it is the way I change the title several times before I'm finished with it. 

My problem might be that I use three different computers - my Windows 8 desktop, my small Dell basic laptop, and my older laptop where most  of my writing is stored. I had hoped to transfer all my work to the new desktop, but I hate that system - Windows 8. I now  hear there  will be another system coming out  in the fall, hopefully  like Windows 7 or XP,  because the majority of the people who use Windows hate Windows 8. It is a poor combination of the popular tablet method and a computer. The genius who thought this up should find another  line of work.

Also, my new desktop computer has become inhabited by gremlins that pop up and freeze the page when I try to use Google Chrome to access my blogs. Now I avoid using that computer for blogging.

There was a time when I felt on top of new technology, when I urged my peers to use the Internet to promote their books and build a platform for their work. I even garnered the admiration of a young nephew who was impressed that a person my age, and I was much younger then, administered a couple of blogs. 

I have Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and a Google Plus account. But there is no way I have time to use all those things. I try to get to Facebook once or twice a week. That is all I can or want to do.

Recently it dawned on me that my favorite computer in my house is the old dinosaur that sits in my studio. It is not connected to the Internet at all. My genealogy program and my Word program is all I use on that old relic, and it faithfully opens and endures for as long as I can sit and use it. I also have a good photography program to use with my scanner. I spend hours scanning old family photos stored in albums that are falling apart, hoping to save them for future generations, and hoping they will care. 

I don't remember when we bought this computer, but I smile when I sit down to use it. It is like an old friend that I know will not fail me. No viruses, no mal-ware, no danger of being hacked. Like an old pair of shoes that are slightly out of style, it feels comfortable to me.

Writing is a way to learn about ourselves. Often when I begin, I don't know where I will end up. 

The lesson I learned today by writing this post is that the Internet stresses me out and gives me a headache. Less time on the Internet and more time on the word processor is my goal from now on. 

The following poem comes from my interest in family history and many trips to old cemeteries. Tell me what you think.

A Southern Family Cemetery  

by Glenda Council Beall      

The creaking wrought iron gate

breaks the silence on the hill

like thunder warns of summer storms.

I feel the breath of gentle winds

that nuzzle long leaf pines and leafy oaks. 

They surround sleeping ancestors

lying in the dust of caskets facing East,

buried deep, blanket green. Lichen-covered

crumbling stones etched with family names

are barely seen through overgrown azaleas.

My great-grandfather, John, veteran

of the War Between the States lies

bordered by two wives; Fanny,

dead at fifty-three, worn out

from birthing seven children.

Missouri half his age, presented 

seven more to complete his second

round before he passed away at seventy-five.

My family men are strong

and woman-wise.

This deathwatch lends my mortal

soul continuum. Strung together

by our veins, like roads on a map,

century to century, suffering the same

finality, enduring the same foreverness.

(Previously published in a different version in Stepping Stone, 2000)