It is such a gift to have the poet, Glenis Redmond as our Featured Writer for this month. It is a double gift as we will also have an opportunity to hear from her during the Creating Space interview on Sunday, January 17 at 3PM. Glenis Redmond has shared five of her poems with us, most of them from her latest book of poems, What My Hand Say. Her poem Summon is included in this post.
Glenis Redmond is an award winning poet and imagination activist who travels nationally and internationally reading and teaching and performing poetry.
She believes that poetry is a healer, and she can be found in the trenches across the world applying pressure to those in need, one poem at a time.
To learn more about Glenis Redmond and to read all five of her poems, go to her featured writer page.
Summon
Call him. Raise him up out the seat.
Free of window shield.
Free of neck break.
Give your mama something more
than the bits and pieces
that she has patched together.
Resurrect the man,
the mahogany frame.
Give her a chance
to stand by her dad––
hold his hand
lifeline to lifeline extending
beyond the four years
that she knew him.
Stoke and stir
turn and turn
until the mist
gives up the memory,
more than ghost
more than the echo
that fills your bones.
Until you see him: Will Todd
a gentle apparition.
Hear the quiet wind of his voice,
the hum of his words
as he tells you how he followed the crops
season to season without fear.
Learn how he walked
upon the red clay with a soft foot.
Rewind. Stop just before
the 1939 Laurens County State Fair.
Pull back his hand pushed by gravity
to purchase the winning ticket
of the black sleek Chevrolet.
Cut short the joyride
and the fast road into fate
smooth out the hard curve,
the mean turn. Leave his life
to more than chance teetering
on a fickle raffle with the highest stakes.
Raise him up out the seat
free of window shield
free of neck break.
Stoke and stir
pull and prod.
Bring him back
conjured and whole.
Lovely poem. Very thought provoking.