1st Prize - Marilyn Kallet, PhD – Knoxville, TN
 

Yom Kippur Remembrance
     September 27, 2001
 

They were not love letters, they were
people, someone’s mother, another’s son.
Brave enough to leap, cheat fire,
some of them hand in hand.
This Yom Kippur we pray for
their families, for those “hurt,”
the rabbi says. Pray for the “wounded,”
she repeats. Mi shebareach,  l’avosaynu.
Bless those in need of healing.
Are the dead past prayer?
Does our language mock them? Do we need
new words for images burned into our brains –
no, “burned” is a lie.

Yisgadel, Va yisgadash. Praise God.
We are the living. What

will be the legacy of our heros, who raced
up stairs to save others and crumbled
under fiery rubble, under someone else’s
idea of fame? Yom Kippur, we let go
or anger, quiet it the way we’d calm a sick child.
We forgive, ourselves, the vague ominous world.
Forgive God. Free will, the rabbi says.
The ashes fall again, forgive men’s hands.
We see God in the faces of the
rescuers, she says. I believe her.

Don’t write about disaster, our poet laureate says.
We know what happened. Tend the ordinary.
I believe him, pull dead leaves
from the mums. Miracle-Gro for them.
Sunlight and fasting for us.

 Award of Excellence  -  Mary Campbell Monroe – Chattanooga, TN
 

Settling the Estate

After my mother’s death, and my father’s before her,
it was left to me, an unwilling intruder,
to invade her privacy. Settle her estate.

Hidden away in drawers were our gift boxes.
Birthdays, Christmas.
Lacy slips and panties, creamy satin, neatly folded.
Gossamer scarves where jeweled pins and pearls
still settled in soft tissue paper.

In moments of rare indulgence,
she mingled our Valentine sachets
with her sturdy underwear,
lending a hint of fragrance to their spartan existence.

In the china cabinet, our gifts of embroidered napkins and tablecloths
lay folded beside ruffled aprons, waiting for a company dinner.
Like the box of exotic teas sent from China years ago.
All waiting for a special occasion.

On the pantry shelves were balls of string,
grocery bags to be reused,
mayonnaise jars for canning,
dishcloths sewn from worn towels,
aprons and napkins cut from old shirts and skirts.
Above the spotless old gas stove,
spices with faded labels defied the test of time.

I sat at the kitchen table in the presence
of my memories. It was her domain,
where she often sat, poring over recipes,
dress patterns or letters.
Our gathering place in lean and
good times for prayer, food, or sharing.

All of this named one word. Estate.
One word. Encompassing her lifetime.

For months I lingered. Settled nothing.
Just to know I could go there to feel her presence.
To touch her life and mine.
To keep her with me a little longer.

Award of Excellence  -  Ann Lewald – Cookeville, TN
 

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
wear photographs of children,
the disappeared of Buenos Aires,
around their necks
in place of crosses,
like holy rosaries.
They seek news of
the grandchildren,
conceived in terror,
or born to the mothers
who gave birth and died
on the same day.
They march for the children
and for the grandchildren,
for the young woman of La Boca,
her poetry censored,
for the Indian servant girls,
raped by fathers and sons,
for the men selling peanuts,
for the children peddling aspirin.

They pass the balconies
where fat diners,
tasting smoky wines,
look down on them.
They pass the Opera Colon,
where once the women
turned their backs
on Evita Peron
and las descamisadas.
They pass the soldiers of
La Casa Rosa,
with guns pointed low,
toward the wombs
of the mothers.
They pass the cafes
of El Barrio Norte,
smelling of dark coffee,
of deep blood.

The eyes of the mothers
are strangely tranquil,
as if they have traveled
to a place of stone.
The mothers and grandmothers
wait like gathering sparrows
that return again and again.
Somewhere smiles a tango singer
who might have bought violets
for one of the mothers
wearing crimson garments
of carefree youth.
Now, they all wear black,
circling the plaza,
like an ancient wheel
of remembering.

The Scottish Society of  Knoxville Award for a Poem Reflecting Celtic Heritage  -  Ann Lewald – Cookeville, TN
 

The Bracelet

Antique bracelet of Scottish agate
Sits in the jeweler’s window
Like a seashell washed up on the shore.
It sings a deep song of cello,
Barre trees in autumn,
Columns of amber, black and gold, marbled
Like the pages in an old book.
A celadon heart of pale moonlight
From fragile chains of gold
Suspends,
Keepsake for a photograph
Or lock of hair,
A fitting gift from a poet to his love.

Not a delicate row of diamonds, no,
That will not do.
His arrogant passion
Demands a heavy reminder,
So when she snags it in her shawl,
She thinks of his hands
In her hair.
When the locket slips into her teacup,
She tastes the buttons
Of his coat.
Once she lost it in a pile of leaves
at dusk,
Beside the River Afton,
Where he had crowned her Queen among the Heather.

Since then,
A hundred years or more
Have been.
The broken locket
Will never display any memento
Save his –
Ghost of a long-extinguished star.
 

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