Poetry: Winning Entries

First Place

Submerged

By Angela Elder Quinn – New Albany, MS

Walter,

you, who rendered

Wonderland’s Alice airy and free

in yellows, pinks, and aquas

on the verge of nothingness,

chose deep orange curves,

bright blue lines and a gash of red

for pumpkins and possum.

Light, bright, and flowing

you rowed toward bold Horn

and painted a little cottage room

full of rooster and stars,

fish and moths.

Gulls and grass curve;

windows disappear

in shadow and light

above a cat prowling

under a zinnia roof.

 

But for yourself,

where is the light and air?

Your face frowns out from a flat canvas

in bruised purple and sepia—

your gaze set beyond my view.

Never will you see your dark hawks

and magnolia pods

with moon-like fluorescence

discovered,

collected,

displayed,

admired,

under Katrina’s waters

submerged,

then, into the light,

restored.

Second Place

Awaiting Epiphany

By Nai Rong Liu – Troy, MI

 

Chalkboards full of formulas,

Find x, he says.

A game of mathematical

hide and seek—

the hidden, triumphant,

the seeker in frustration.

   

Left-brain society and I do not

click like high heels

on marbled floors or pearls on broken string

diving to their deaths—not at all

like the victorious sound

of golden keys unlocking golden doors.

 

Give it time, she said. Maybe it’ll grow on you.

I doubt that. If it did it’d grow like the thorny

leaves of the acacia, inviting,

but guarded by esoteric ants, elitist giants

barring entry into the realm of the sacred,

sealing off the gems of the known.

 

Maybe it’ll appear from nowhere in a glimpse

of intuition, a softened image on sleepy eyelashes

peeled away and cherished—

to be a dream-catcher is to be gifted—

no fanfare, no drum roll,

knowledge comes quietly.

 

But for now, I doodle, watching ink squiggles

turn to meaning—four corners filled

with words, blissful; thoughts, ephemeral—

working inward from the outskirts,

towards the day

the seeker is triumphant.

Third Place

A Photograph in My Mind

By Brenda Brown Finnegan – Ocean Springs, MS

A cool fall day, near Graveline bayou,

while driving down the narrow country road,

we drove in silence taking in the view,

happy to leave behind the weekday’s load.

 

My husband said, while pointing left and out,

“He caught a fish,” and looking up I saw

a hawk which held a large angry green trout

which dripping, wriggled, in the hawk’s sharp claw.

 

We watched the scene, the wriggling fish, the hawk;

their path was ours for a moment’s time.

then suddenly, the bird, the fish he caught

turned, disappeared in branches of a pine.

 

A photo could have made the scene complete;

my camera lay behind me on the seat.

Honorable Mention

Gathering Wildflowers

By Brenda Brown Finnegan – Ocean Springs, MS

The wildflowers on graveled Lemon Street

Are yellow, pink and periwinkle blue.

My husband parks his old truck and the dew

brushes the tires and gently wets my feet.

 

I walk beside him in September heat,

And point out a specimen to pursue.

He wades into the weeds beside a yew

And plants the shovel squarely in the peat.

 

The truck is filled with spindly spires, tall,

Of purple blazing star, white rose mallow

From country roads today in almost fall

To a yard with holes dug deep and shallow.

We gently place the treasures one and all

and sprinkle mulched beds no longer fallow.

Return to the 2009 "Let's Write" Literary Contest Winners