Author: Darlene Franklin-Campbell

Donde estan las estrellas?
Donde estan las flores?
Donde estan las conaciones
de las ninas?

Estan en el Valle de las Sombras,
las sombras de muerte
donde vive ayer bailar,
bailar con eternidad, donde la viente sopla,
sopla donde quiere.

“It’s not right for me,”

said the big New York agent

about my story.

 He wanted an exclusive.

I waited two months while

he looked,

two months after two

years of waiting

on the one with enthusiasm.

“I can sell it!”

she said.

She didn’t.

So I write again,

not query letters,

just poetry, just stories

and I give them

to hearts that need

to hear, like Holy Spirit

gifts and God-love,

not for sale.

Too priceless for tags,

but if someone offers,

maybe…I’ll consider.

Passion flowers smell chocolate
in white dust
along tobacco patch edges
while Caribbean skies
lie over Appalachia,
like a lover,

speaking sweetness
to her in valley cane
and swamp marshes
where dragonflies
glint blue above
brackish dog day water.

This world belongs
to mountain children
where the South rises
with every oak, every pine,
every hundred year old pear,
rises from death
rich earth

to testify.

Should I feel guilty for porch
afternoons beneath mimosa fragrance
and magnolia blooms

for hummingbird whizzing
and wind chime songs?

Should I have shame for my beneath-
the-bush lazy cat and red geranium
pot swan, for shady side streets
swept by westerly breezes?

When Iran and Iraq are bombing,
when a hundred other places fight
and California is hot? When England
is flooded and bees die?

Should I dig a hole, hide
and wait for trumpets,
or just teach a child to read,
then give thanks for my corner
while it still exists?

 

She rises,
swirling white phantom
over blue-green water,

then dissolves

into mid-morning sun
with no promise
of return.