Beulah, and: On the Tenth Anniversary of James Still’s Passing
Rent from DeepDyve- Beulah, and: On the Tenth Anniversary of James Still’s Passing
BEULAH
She’s sitting in a straight chair,romance book open,coffee cold with rainbows,alone most of the timewith oxygen tank’s tubes and masks,baskets of prescription pill bottles.
With company, she is in her element,cooking, walkingas far as the cord can reach.She gives the lot of us advice on winningin business, in love.She can tell you the best way to handle a divorce,get a baby to sleep or school an ex in a settlement.
“You know what your problem is…”
Her voice rasps years of cigarette smokea husky note in every sentence,we winced, but now we miss her advice, her wisdomas she cataloged where each of us went wronga litany of our “problems” handed out like dinner rolls. [End Page 99]
ON THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF JAMES STILL’S PASSING
This last day of Aprilwe gather to celebrate and remember.Cutworms free fall;we laugh, slap them away,fat green bodies that wiggleand slide their silky curveson our warm backs.
How they cling, hangall their hundred legsin this holy shrine,where we have sung and swarpedin summers, where balladsof lost love and old timereligion brought sweetcommunion, where we wove wordslike filaments on dewy spider webssuspended over Troublesome Creek.
Were he present,and who’s to say he is not,I reckon the old manwould chuckle at plentiful larvaeof these night flying moths. Mayhaphe would saywho he wants with him in heaven,recite verses about butterflies on Wolfpen, [End Page 100] minnows that leap inshallow pools,happy as we to bein these hills and of these hills,still. [End Page 101]
Sylvia Woods is a native Kentuckian and former high school English teacher in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Her work has been published in literary journals and anthologies, including Appalachian Heritage, Southern Poetry Anthology III: Appalachia, and Southern Poetry Anthology VI: Tennessee.
