This is my letter to the world
by Emily Dickinson
This is my letter to the world That never wrote to me,— The simple news that Nature told With tender majesty. Her message is committed To hands I cannot see; For love of her, sweet countrymen Judge tenderly of me!
REUNION by Brenda Ethridge Ferguson Air conditioners cool the hall where they assemble. They who wear the accumulation of years as a heavy mantle no longer favor park pavilions and July heat and fighting flies off black-eyed peas and okra. Histories meet again. Bored children endure long hours of hugs and sugar-coated interest in cousins’ offspring’s offspring. But he, the remnant of another time, sits smiling. His manner laced with respectful reserve, he turns his crinkled face and half-closed eye toward his less ancient, more talkative kin. “Yes,” he chuckles and nods as his distant cousin regales him with stories of days gone by— family stories about long lines of Bills and Aggies turning light bulbs. The old man sits upright, fully-suited in dark, summer-weight wool, speaking so softly his cousin leans forward to hear. Young men pass by. Feebly he reaches out to them, hand extended, courtly. “Thanks for inviting me,” he says. They pause, bow slightly, “Of course, they say,” unaware he sits in their seat. LATE AFTERNOON by Brenda Ethridge Ferguson Late afternoon and I sit rocking. There is rain enough and peace. The porch, splashed smoothly wet, is my own porch, finally, my own chair--as God allows. In the distance, the sun, struggling against ominous clouds, spotlights a young mesquite, all liquid green, sequins shimmering in the heavy mist. Perhaps a sign. Through the wall, I hear voices and laughter that chimes like brass butterflies brushed by a strengthening breeze. For now, my family are safe and dry within the house and that is all we know of heaven.