'Each Leaf On This Tree Will Heal A Nation' by Betsy Pinckney

A Found Poem: Each Leaf On This Tree Will Heal A Nation

I sick one time, in 1894. I sick
til my mother and father give me up.
Typhoid fever, gracious God! Oh that's a
good God. I can prove it!

I was to go into the hospital
the next day. There was a door,
just like I looking at it now. I see a
white man come through and walk
just past my bed. He come and
just look at me. Didn't say nothing, then
go out. 1894.

And when the day was clean,
the white gentleman come through
the door again; I didn't know how
he come into the house, but there
he was. And he had on a blue gown, and
hair drop on he shoulder. Yes sir! And
he come to my bed, ask me, "What will
you have me to do?" And you know
what I tell him? I say, "Please sir,
could you read the fifteenth chapter and
the psalm, 'The Lord is My Shepherd'?"

He say, "Have you a prayer book?" Ask me
just like I asking you a question! I say,
"Yes sir." He read the fifteenth chapter,
the first six verse. Then after he done
read that, he turn to the Twenty-Third Psalm,
and he read it for me. And he take me
and he carry me down to a river. My spirit
go on down to the river. Jesus! And when
I get there, he said, "This tree bears
twelve manna fruit. And every leaf
on this tree will heal a nation." Gracious
God have mercy! Well sir,

I wake up. I ain't seen the man
gone, but I know he come and carry me
to that tree, down to that river side, and
he tell me, "Each leaf on this tree will
heal a nation." Never sick so
again yet! And that's the truth. Gracious
God have mercy! Don't tell me
don't serve God, because I am
going to serve God until he say
"well done." Yes ma'am, "well done."

Miss Me, But Let Me Go

MISS ME – BUT LET ME GO

When I come to the end of the road and the sun has set for me,
I want no rites in a gloom-filled room. Why cry for a soul set free.

Miss me a little but not too long, and not with your head bowed low.

Remember the love that we once shared, Miss me, but let me go.

For this is a journey that we all must take, and each must go alone.

It’s all a part of the Master’s plan, a step on the road to home.

When you are lonely and sick at heart,
Go to the friends we know,
And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds,

Miss me, but let me go.

Anonymous

Poe's THE RAVEN Read By Vincent Price

the hole

the hole.

i fell into it.

lost in the dark, i couldn't find

a way to climb out.

you reached in and

pulled me out.

not too hard a feat, but

one i do appreciate.


carley eason evans

MARRIAGE by Louise Gluck

Marriage
by Louise Glück October 22, 2007


All week they’ve been by the sea again
and the sound of the sea colors everything.
Blue sky fills the window.
But the only sound is the sound of the waves pounding the shore—
angry. Angry at something. Whatever it is
must be why he’s turned away. Angry, though he’d never hit her,
never say a word, probably.

So it’s up to her to get the answer some other way,
from the sea, maybe, or the gray clouds suddenly
rising above it. The smell of the sea is in the sheets,
the smell of sun and wind, the hotel smell, fresh and sweet
because they’re changed every day.

He never uses words. Words, for him, are for making arrangements,
for doing business. Never for anger, never for tenderness.
She strokes his back. She puts her face up against it,
even though it’s like putting your face against a wall.

And the silence between them is ancient: it says
these are the boundaries.

He isn’t sleeping, not even pretending to sleep.
His breathing’s not regular: he breathes in with reluctance;
he doesn’t want to commit himself to being alive.
And he breathes out fast, like a king banishing a servant.

Beneath the silence, the sound of the sea,
the sea’s violence spreading everywhere, not finished, not finished,
his breath driving the waves—

But she knows who she is and she knows what she wants.
As long as that’s true, something so natural can’t hurt her.

I See You on the Sea

I See You on the Sea

How odd life has been today as I have watched myself

Flee pain and search for peace;

As I have discovered that I do not want or need you any longer.

You are a fading memory

Of a boy I knew so far away.

I see you on the sea, tossed about like a tiny paper ship.

I see you in a field being whipped around by winds not even strong.

I see you holding hands with someone who is not the one you promised

To love your whole lifetime.

I see your ship sinking beneath a wave not even tall enough to cover the mast.

Your anchor has failed, and you are drifting away.

I have no means to call you back; no means to right your ship, to stop

The wind from pushing you onto the ground where

You choose to lie face down in mud, thinking it, I suppose,

Sweet to smell and taste.

Val Evans 03/10/2006

10/03/2006