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Remember poems by Barbara Southard
ISBN: 978-0-9743603-9-3
72 pages, 6 x 9
to order this book
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Remember
Remember this
Junior Brown playing the blues.
Those leaves at dusk traveling
to the center of your soul
through conduits of deep crimson.
Store this
In some retrievable place,
like the glass dish placed
on the window sill, still holding
sea-washed stones from that little town
in Italy, where we walked through
the woods to swim in the sea.
Remember this
The hummingbird that pierced
your heart with beauty outside
the window of the café near the
Bay of Fundy—or the snow geese
rising up of one mind like Buddha
out of the marshes in coastal Virginia.
Store these
In some retrievable place,
to be brought back when your eyes
dim and your body no longer answers
your bidding—when ghosts of past
failures crowd out the incandescent
feel of a baby’s hand in yours.
Remember these
The multitude of sacred moments
that marched onward from that first
sentient spark to the last flickering light.
Remember
Moment
There is that moment
burrowed between clattering dishes
or a fence that needs mending
when there is perfection,
like the flashing silver reflection
of a school of fish passing by
when clarity takes hold
and life throws a clue:
another peach to be plucked
all fragrant and soft, each bite sweet,
juice coursing down your face
like salty tears.
Rowing at 3 A.M.
Freeport
When oars slip into the water
waking drifting jellyfish
stars slide down from the morning sky
mingle with blue claws searching
for their morning meal
while mussels hiss from muddy banks
and the lopsided moon shoots ribbons
of silver across the canal—
dark houses on each side
like ancient amphibians
waiting for the morning sun
to touch their backs, start the day.
A boat, coming in from a night’s fishing
searchlights the docks for mooring
sending killies for cover
until it’s dark, still, once again—
amoebic-scented seawater
impregnating the air.
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from the back-cover:
I am struck by the subtle nature of Barbara Southard’s poetry and the delicacy of her role
as observer and guide to her reader. In poem after seemingly simple straightforward poem
she offers the careful reader unexpected dimension and sudden illuminations.
What we see is not what we might have seen. Looking inward, we see out into the world.
Looking out into the world, see ourselves.
Barbara Southard takes us to exotic places, from the Andes to Antarctica. And frequently,
as in “Kenai Peninsula at 11 P.M.,” the lovely imagistic nature of her writing carries the day.
But even in her most mundane locale illuminations may occur: in that moment/burrowed
between clattering dishes. . . life throws a clue (“Moment”). In the back seat of a car with a
child, not yet two, we re-live the intimacy of the moment she discovers there is a relationship
between air pushedfrom pressed lips and a bird or a butterfly, the child’s lips like tight buds
ready to bloom (“Where Poetry Begins”).
You’d be surprised what you find/once you climb that fence, she declares in the poem
“Sumps.”
Barbara Southard can find meaning in the most subtle of signs: in the darkened handle on
a hammer/a wedding band reduced to a sliver/of gold, concaved cutting board/hanging on
the kitchen wall (“Marks”). In “Ice” a pond has snapped into a latticelike pattern of frozen
and unfrozen beauty, water, ice and land/settled back into quiet symmetry, and we were there
to witness it. Junior Brown plays the blues and we have been reminded of snow geese/rising up
of one mind like Buddha/out of the marshes in coastal Virginia (“Remember”).
This is the poet as guide to her reader, someone who has learned to look into things, through
them, or tangentially to them in a manner that results in surprise, delight or wisdom.
A scout on the trail, teaching us to look beyond and through the standard signs of the trail for
deeper signs.
Remember is a book of rare glimpses at the worlds behind the world we encounter in our
day-to-day lives. A lot of poets can’t do that for readers, and the fact that Barbara Southard
can makes the quiet contemplation of her art a rare treat.
- George Wallace
First Poet Laureate of Suffolk County, New York
February 18, 2008
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Copyright © 2008-2012 Barbara Southard
Website © 2003-2012 Walter E. Harris III
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