[with poems from PINESONG 2023, NC Poetry Society Anthology]
Preservation
Even with the old house gone, ground smoothed
and seeded, other centuries erased,
we tell of Grandmother’s death
in a bedroom right about here.
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Tell how the kitchen floor sagged
as our mother, age five, made biscuits
afraid she would be spanked
if the didn’t rise to suit her mother.
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Tell how the old woman at last
spoke kindly to her only daughter
who sacrificed for weeks to buy the dress
her mother would wear only in her coffin.
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We never knew this grandmother, just
that our mother retold those tales never understanding
how a person can forsake life itself.
What to do with that choice?
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We remember the stories, pass them down
with our own embroidered feelings
in the fabric. We tell of Ethel’s first husband,
our grandfather, dead at thirty-six,
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who planted orchards and a vineyard.
We visit him in apples and pears,
retelling what became of his children,
what his absence has meant.
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We even imagine the coconut meringue pie
served at Grandmother’s wake,
toasted and dotted with sugar pearls –
so good it made mourners glad to be alive.
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Our mother smiled as we licked the story from our lips.
And each of learned to make this pie
just as Mother taught us, preserving
something sweet from every dark remembrance.
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I wish a kindly wind could blow away
the hurts of ages past, resettle the ashes
in pleasing ways, retell the stories with humor,
with morals to live by and cherish,
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but here we are, generations later, quibbling
whether families live and grow by story.
What of fact? Genealogy provided dates
and places, names and maps.
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The great grandfather who fought on both sides
in the Civil War, the uncle lost in Korea,
the orphaned grandfathers indentured to farmers.
Mother already had Alzheimer’s, told me,
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pointing to Daddy, Oh, honey, I can’t remember
and he lies. I don’t know what you’ll do for the truth.
Perhaps siblings never agree, once parents are gone.
Now we struggle to hold onto something vital:
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that places hold the sounds and scents
of lives passed there, that stout maples
and great-grandfather pecan trees remember
their youth, that all that ever was still is,
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that what has been preserved remains,
a family farm in Yadkin County, now
in its last iteration. Chant home like an incantation.
Weave a thread of truth in the weft.
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Is it enough to sustain family?
To embody story kindly?
And how to teach future generations
to savor what they refuse to know?
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A storm comes up, the wind and rain
sweeping the fields we work, the same
ground our great great-grandfathers tilled.
We shriek, wanting to run away,
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and Mother lets us go. She stays, leaning on her hoe,
takes off her straw hat and lifts her face to the rain,
a benediction. Grace, acceptance, story.
This is my Something to preserve.
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Jane Shlensky
Poet Laureate Award, Pinesong 2023
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How would you describe this little bird we’re hearing? Squeaky? About one octave below dog whistle? Here’s a big clue: couplets, always couplets, each longer phrase built from couplets. Peaches, Peaches, Sweety, Sweety, See Me!
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He’s perched at the edge. (Reminder to self, look higher than it sounds like I need to.) There he is, right at the edge of the big maple where the leaves peter out until we might actually have a good chance of spotting him. The edge of the treeline between cow pasture and copse: his preferred habitat is at the very edge, securing both cover for nest and forage for seeds & spiders. And at the edge of survival, on which side is he perched, thrive or decline?
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This Indigo Bunting and his two rivals nearby, all singing non-stop, flew 1,200 miles from Central America to arrive here a few weeks ago. He has found this little patch of Mountains-to-Sea Trail in Surry County very much to his liking, rural fragmentation, edge habitat at the merger of field and scrub. He and his cohorts are thriving. There are currently most likely many more Indigo Buntings covering a much larger geography than were here in North America before the colonists arrived. Last Saturday I ran my annual USGS Breeding Bird Survey count, my twenty-eighth run since 1995 (50 designated stops, count every bird seen or heard in three minutes). With rare exceptions, each year Indigo Bunting tops the individual tally. Despite woodlots harvested, farms planted with new homes, over-tended monoculture lawns, Bunting still finds enough fallow, neglected, brushy edge to make a living.
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And perhaps these Indigo Buntings also top the count of those seen and heard because they are such indefatigable singers, all day long, song after song, in every weather.
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There are winners and losers whenever humans move into the neighborhood. We planted nesting boxes and brought Bluebirds back from the brink. We tore down the woods and let our (F-word) cats range free and I’ve only heard two Whip-poor-wills since 2007. Some species seek out the edge habitat we create in our diced up rural landscape, some will even come to our feeders, but as I read through my yearly USGS data I wonder how much longer I’ll still be hearing vireos, tanagers, wood warblers. So many on the edge.
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❦
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Poetry must seek out habitat where it can grow and thrive. When 150 listeners gathered at Weymouth Center in Southern Pines two weeks ago to hear poems read aloud from the newest issue of Pinesong, the ground of creativity burst its constrained borders into fresh and fertile fields. The North Carolina Poetry Society sponsors sixteen annual contests for individual poems, with a wide diversity of requirements, themes, forms, and prompts. The fruit of that diversity, the poems of the winners, is collected each year into this single volume. We open the book to read like walking a trail that winds from one discovery to the next.
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Poetry needs this edge, this sharp stab of novelty and this precarious but visible perch of invention and insight. An exploration, an awakening, a fulfillment. I am always glad to hear a song I can recognize. I am even more filled with joy to learn a new song.
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Henna
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The world misunderstands:
The stained designs of my homeland
Are not a fashion statement, but a
Statement of my mind.
People ask – they can’t help it
Might as well have committed
Bloody murder for the way they stare.
Try to act unaware when I’ve been caught red-handed.
Eyes like magnets to the henna; I wish I could disguise
The distaste on their faces but it’s lace
In every look they send, cant pretend it’s easy to withstand
They could never understand . . .
Because how do I tell them it’s my one way of feeling visible?
Oh, how I want to be seen. Just
Picture the scene:
The brown girl to dark for passing but
Too light to avoid them asking about whether I’m Mexican
Or next of kin to become the chief of a tribe but who actually
Comes from the place even Columbus couldn’t find.
Imagine being stranded at sea: alone and lost the
Ocean a pounding current of blows, it
Beats you and cheats you and goes to show
How scars can sprout
Without being sown.
The henna paste soothes the pain.
Though replaced with stains the scars remain.
A silent scream to the world around me
I will be know in this country!
Until then, inked flowers will bloom along my palm, vines
Shall curl around my fingers in song.
Let this garden surround you
With its beauty; it belongs.
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Kiran Singh
8th Grade, Cary Academy
Mary Chilton Award Honorable Mention, Pinesong 2023
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Pinesong is the annual publication of contest winning poems by the North Carolina Poetry Society, founded in 1932. Pinesong 2023 is Number 59, edited by Sherry Pedersen-Thrasher with assistance from Joan Barasovska. This year’s volume is dedicated to David Radavich, former NCPS President and steadfast supporter of poetry and the arts.
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You can learn more about North Carolina Poetry Society and its contests, plus read previous years’ editions of Pinesong . . . here.
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If you would like to purchase Pinesong ($12, postage included) please contact NCPS Vice President of Membership Joan Barasovska: msjoan9[at]gmail[dot]com
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A free issue of Pinesong is available to all NCPS members in good standing who request ($2 mailing expense). Please contact Joan, as above.
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V E R S E and I M A G E 
Bill, I’m so glad you included “Henna,” a remarkably courageous and beautiful statement from such a young person.
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I agree. I read every poem and Kiran’s certainly stood out for me. —B
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While she was reading it at Weymouth a toddler broke away from her parents and did a little dance for the audience. Kiran glanced over and smiled.
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My admiration for her knows no bounds. Sweetness. —B
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Jane’s, “Preservation,” sinks right into my heart, right into my memories, my past life. Oh, how it deserved the Poet Laureate award!
The singing, beautiful indigo bunting is my favorite bird. I haven’t seen one in a long while.
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I was moved by both of these poems. Jane’s is wise and accomplished, and Kiran Singh’s poignant–I’m always happy to see young people writing about their feelings. And yes! to the indigo bunting and your comments about this valiant and brilliant little bird. Every summer in Canada the bunting arrives with his mate and he sings off an on all day every day through the month of July. As if going by a calendar, there’s no sign of them by August 1.
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Thanks, Debra, for the joy and affirmation, and for your observation about the more northern indigos. Interesting. —B
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