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[ with 3 poems by Marilyn Hedgpeth ]
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The Cross and the Carpenter Bees
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They haul the worn wooden cross
from the depths of the church,
into the light of the sanctuary,
to make ready for its days
of Lenten pageantry, draped in purple.
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It’s oddly riddled with holes, I notice,
as if shot through, front and back,
which no one recalls from last year
when it was confined to the basement
soon after Easter.
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So, I stay watchful, keep my eyes open
while voicing prayers of penitence,
confessions of mortality,
while each person’s forehead is marked
with a dirty smudge of ash
as the organ drones.
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Amidst this solemn ritual,
one by one they begin to emerge:
hibernating carpenter bees
rising lazily like sleepers waking
from tombs bored deep
into the marrow of the wood,
to stretch cramped wings.
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Marilyn Turner Hedgpeth
from Alenda Lux, Warren Publishing, Charlotte NC; © 2026 by Ingram P. Hedgpeth
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❀ ❀ ❀
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Crows Playing in the Snow
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The first snowfall in 1,038 days,
barely a dusting, a sifting,
like powdered sugar on a cake.
The postman drives boldly, undeterred,
yet walks gingerly over crunchy grass,
carefully up slippery steps
to deliver a handful of cards,
catalogues, and holiday chachka.
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In a vacant lot down the way,
crows are playing in the snow.
Nose up, flaps down, they skid to a halt,
rattling as they touch down awkwardly,
black on white.
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An elderly driver ventures out slowly,
unable to discern between
salt, slag, and black ice.
He creeps and swerves,
brake lights casting red reflections.
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Meanwhile, crows are playing in the snow,
arching their mighty wings,
they laugh out loud as they make dark
snow angels with their shadows,
black on white.
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A passing car speeds up,
tossing its top-knot of snow,
blizzarding those in its wake.
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Nearby, crows are playing in the snow,
hopscotching on crows’ feet to create
hatched patterns on a blank canvas.
They caw to their friends
to come out and joint them.
I scramble to find my boots.
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Marilyn Turner Hedgpeth
from Alenda Lux, Warren Publishing, Charlotte NC; © 2026 by Ingram P. Hedgpeth
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❀ ❀ ❀
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Laughter Returns
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so surprising
it startles me
our small group playing handbells
flubs a simple song
known by heart since cradle roll
Jesus Loves Me, This I Know
suddenly unrecognizable
causing us all to laugh so hard
we almost drop our bells
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This last year
I had forgotten
the contagion of hearing others
chortle just over my shoulder
the catharsis of laughing off
blunders and clangers
the full-bodied posture
of knee-buckling joy
I had forgotten
before fear and grief
the music of communal happiness
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Marilyn Turner Hedgpeth
from Alenda Lux, Warren Publishing, Charlotte NC; © 2026 by Ingram P. Hedgpeth
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❀ ❀ ❀
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Last week a friend rang my doorbell to hand me this book, Alenda Lux, Latin for “cherish the light.” As he placed it in my hands, he told me the story of the poems and the poet, Marilyn, a dear family friend for decades, her sudden and unexpected death from an accident. He thought the poetry might speak some special message to me, but he confessed that it has been a hard year for him as well, not only this loss of a friend but also of family members and those he loved. A year of grief and sadness.
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And then for a minute my friend and I ponder together the book’s title. What light might we hope to discover here? Is there any promise that out of death we may draw some connection to life? Reading these lines, will we lament or rejoice?
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Marilyn had prepared this manuscript before her fatal accident in 2025, and her husband and children have insured that it be published in a beautiful volume, with evocative photography by Diana Greene. As a minister for twenty-four years, Marilyn Hedgpeth certainly must have sojourned in the realms of both hope and despair. Her poems do not feign ignorance of the darkness that can cloud the human soul, but they also never forsake the unceasing and unvanquishable light that desires to lift our spirits every hour, every day. Reading these poems, I am raised up. I am convinced there is a power larger than any pain of my own. Distant sometimes, but always drawing closer, I believe I hear the music of happiness.
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✾ ✿ ❁
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Marilyn Turner Hedgpeth published her first poetry collection, The Lightness of Reprieve, in 20224, and that same year published a collaboration with her writing group, White Fence. She earned a Master of Divinity from Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia and served as a Presbyterian Minister of Word and Sacrament for twenty-four years, seventeen of them at First Presbyterian Church in Durham, North Carolina. In her author’s notes accompanying the manuscript, she says the poems “coalesced from relationships past and present that have provided light (lux in Latin), strength, resilience, and hope to my life.” Her family, with the publication of the book, added a memoriam, including, “When we read these poems, we sense that Marilyn is still very present.” May it be so.
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And in the book’s title poem, Marilyn reveals that her father originally wished for her, his first-born, to be named Alenda Lux.
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Alenda Lux is available from Warren Publishing.
The Lightness of Reprieve is featured at Verse and Image HERE
The Lightness of Reprieve is featured at Verse and Image HERE
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Sessile Bellwort
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