Watching the Stars Fall and: Journey Proud

Poems by Bettie Sellers Watching the Stars Fall Perseid, the meteor showers of late summer, the Big Dipper pours out snippets of light on the slopes of Rabun Bald, on ground-pine spreading green stars under low bush. Jewelweed catches yellows, golds, shares orange with Turk's-Cap lilies nodding beside the road. In this near darkness, I cannot see Joe-Pye-Weed, wild asters absorbing the purple rays or a great mushroom splashed with reds spilling over onto a terra-cotta mound of black ants. When morning comes, I will forget the light streaking down the sky above the mountain, see only replenishment, colors touched up, warmed across the August land. Journey Proud Ten, I would lie awake, fretting the journeyand it not due for daystracing the road long or short to Rico and the upland farm where Harriette waited, cousin to my adventures in Long Creek where tadpoles flicked stubby tails, miraculous forerunner of frogs' legs twitching in hot grease, and Aunt Cora baked a thousand pies. Now, springs creak, pillows sigh for journeys longer than a few red clay milessomewhere out there Homer's islands wait, souvalki, and the dark red Blood of Heracles. 56 ...