N osta lg ia

Press

Est. 1986

HEART www.nostalgiapress.com

POETRY & PROSE No. 2

Etc.

Keep thy heart with all diligence;

for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23

CONTENTS

2 Winner Heart Poetry Award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elizabeth Bodien- Kempton, PA

3 September Remembering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .” . . . . . . . . . . .” .. . . . .

Honorable Mentions

4 Ocean Homily . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Catherine De Laney- N. Andover, MA

5 Kites and Magicians . . . . “Amakiasu” Barbara Ford- Atlanta, GA

6 Dinah Washington on Highway 395 . . . . . . . . . . . . Susanne Griepp- Chewela, WA

7 And So Have Lived . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dee C. Konrad- Northbrook, IL

8 Irony and Grief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .” . . . . . . . .”. . . . . .

9 Essence of Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .”. . . .. . . . . “. . . . . .

10 Eyes to See . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Angie Ledbetter- Baton Rouge, LA

11 Mothers of Easter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “. . . . . . . . “. . . . . .

12 Rituals of Comfort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jamie L. Mauldin- Newport, KY

13 Seasonal Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gwen Monahan- Culpepper, VA

14 Shadow in the Orchard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elaine Morgan- Warrenton, VA

15 Becoming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .”. . . . . . . .”. . . . . .

16 Generosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..”. . . . . . . . .”. . . . . .

17 The Weight of Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Julie Teece- W. Springfield, MA

18 Small Tarzan in a Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Art Schwartz- Rockville Centre, NY

19 The Sparrows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .”. . . . . . . . .”. . . . . .

20 Questions in the Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marie Wood, Sun City, FL

21 HEART BOOK REVIEW of What the Locusts Had Eaten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Nikki O’Baire Story by Author Jennifer Evans- Canton, GA

22 Photo “Sunset” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dixie Anna Hughes, Orangeburg, SC

23 The Time it Takes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Connie Lakey Martin- Orangeburg, SC

24 HEARTFULLY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editor

$5.00

!Published by

NOSTALGIA PRESSConnie Lakey Martin, Editor

www.nostalgiapress.com

© Copyright 2007 by Connie L. Martin No. 2

Authors Retain Literary Rights to their Composition

ISSN 1936-315X

HEÌRT Page 1

“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage,

and he shall strengthen thine heart . . . .” Psalm 27:14

HEÌRT Page 2

HEART POETRY AWARD $300

È Elizabeth Bodien È

Kempton, Pennsylvania

“To me, poetry seems like a grand human enterprise of

trying to put into words what often defies being put

into words. Poetry comes at the world obliquely and, because

it offers a different angle, we are able to see and understand

differently, more directly into the heart of the matter. I like

skittering on the border of the known world of language and

the wilderness beyond language. I like a poem when it points

beyond itself, beyond language to something else – a mystery

itself which may even desire to fall into words. Often I am quite mystified by what

actually appears on the page. I write best in the wee early hours of the morning when

the borderline between worlds is less like a wall, more like an invitation.

“The act of writing is like saying a prayer—opening up to what may come. Then

the revision involves talking to the poem to see what it needs and wants, what music

it needs to sing and dance. The past figures strongly in the poems I write, the poet

being in the position between those who have gone before and those yet to come. My

better poems don’t feel so much like mine as like gifts that deserve my best efforts to

dress and present to others– a contribution to the worthy efforts of all of us to

understand our world and our place in it.”

Elizabeth taught at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Her undergraduate and graduate degrees are from the University of California at

Berkeley, John F. Kennedy University and the Graduate Theological Union. She has

had poems published in Ruah, Lilliput Review, Bear Creek Haiku, red lights, Bogg, The

Litchfield Review, and in Across the Long Bridge: An Anthology of Award-Winning

Poems. Her poems have won prizes such as First Prize at the Pennsylvania Writers

Conference. Her chapbook, Plumb Lines, is scheduled for Spring 2008 publication by

Plan B Press.

ÈCOMMENTS FROM POETRY JUDGE È“What led me to choose September Remembering? There is an instant appeal to this

poem. One is forced to read the second line: How could we have known then? Known

what? I must know. For my own sake, I must find out. The German poet Hölderlin

referred to poetry as the ‘most dangerous’ gift of all. For by it we define ourselves.

Bodien’s imagistic verse achieves the same. We are forced to define ourselves anew in

her vibrant recall of fragrant lilacs and creeping dusk, the fickle realm of the self in

memory. Captivating hardly does it justice.” – Benjamin W. Farley, Ph.D.

HEÌRT Page 3

Heart Poetry Award

Elizabeth BodienKempton, Pennsylvania

ssuccinct@enter.net

SEPTEMBER REMEMBERING

How could we have known then

those corn-on-the-cob summers with doting grandparents

would remain in all their ice cream sweetness?

Or that intoxicating lilacs over our small heads

at Mothers Day picnics on blankets in the park

would linger fragrant in memory?

How do some memories get lost behind

and others steadfast pass through time,

as if some Cerberus made decisions at the gates of remembering?

Now is the crepuscle,

the lingering light drawing together day and night

and, in spite of fickle memory, our busy eyes

insist on composing yet another day.

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Catherine De LaneyNorth Andover, Massachusetts

brooksey23@comcast.net

OCEAN HOMILY

darkness descends

the turbulent surf

begs to be heard

pleads to be engaged

but the abandoned beach

is mute

save one lonely raucous gull

crying feed me feed me

like all the importunate

hungry of the world

and the creator

of this wind-swept place

touched by the desolate seabird’s

anguished plea

provides life-giving sustenance

thus setting its spirit free

to glorify its maker

and allowing the restless surf

to retreat

having witnessed a miracle

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“Amakiasu” Barbara FordAtlanta, Georgia

Btx54@yahoo.com

KITES AND MAGICIANS

Beneath the levity I often feel

there are sobering moments

issues, which sometimes surface suddenly

anchoring me down

like a kite, lifting, dipping, soaring;

it thinks itself free, only to be tugged upon

drawn in, yanked and tugged some more

bitter/sweet

the play of opposites exquisitely demonstrates our apparent duality:

with joy comes pain

with highs come lows

without love there is fear

every front has a back,

the dark cloud, a silver lining

These are the ironic twists of being physical and non-physical

at the same time

the magic is in seeing the oneness of it all

for opposites truly denote a different experience of the same thing

but, despite the knowing,

the magic eludes me today

the vanishing act, though illusory, seems real

for the string, turned rope, is yanking ever so hard

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Susanne GrieppChewelah, Washington

gogriepps@yahoo.com

DINAH WASHINGTON ON HIGHWAY 395

Takin’ the highway south out of the valley, morning’s

windshield-sky slaps heat across the dashboard.

I dial in the jazz station and the singer grabs me by the ear.

Sounds like she’s ridin’ in my car, her Blues in the Night right here

in the front seat. I know that caramel taffy voice, that

round-mama scoop to a deliberate edge. It’s gotta be Dinah.

This time, it’s virtuosity I hear, staccato precision; pitches pointed

like voiced light, connected top to bottom by her signature

come-here-kitty-kitty slurs, those slides that make me listen to every line.

Her magic etched vinyl in some distant studio booth and it’s still

spinning into morning’s air waves right now, across decades,

touchin’ my ear drums, tellin’ me what her mama done tol’ her.

She sweeps me up with a curling come-here finger glide, wraps me

in a chocolate-syrup-scoop-of-sound and then holds me in a single edgy note

like she’s makin’ a point, sayin’, ‘Listen here, hun’.

You bet I’m listenin’; I’m all ears, even after the very last note.

The singer in me sighs “oh yeah”, tears slidin’ into silence

ringing in my car. I punch the radio button off with a hurried jab

before some jaunty rendition of ‘Don’t Get Around Much Anymore’

slices the quiet, stompin’ out the sacred afterglow,

breaking Dinah’s spell.

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Dee C. KonradNorthbrook, Illinois

dkonrad@aol.com

AND SO HAVE LIVED

Somewhere a melting shelf

holds all the songs

I have not sung.

A foggy desk is heaped

with poetry

I did not write.

And in a field that fades

like red hibiscus,

full at dawn; limp at dusk,

I bend in dances

never learned, to music

I have never heard.

Afloat on misty seas

that drift to nowhere

sway boats I’ll never sail.

Yet I have held the falling ball

of love in two cupped hands and,

laughing, tossed it in the air,

But I could not escape

its quick return

and so have lived!

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Dee C. KonradNorthbrook, Illinois

dkonrad@aol.com

IRONY AND GRIEF

When you left too soon last night,

time lost its true identity.

Falling stars shot themselves

down crooked paths.

A white moon veiled her face

with black-smudged clouds,

and loneliness reshaped itself

into a threatening phantom

with an ugly grimace,

half-smirk, half-snarl.

A sharp wind chilled the air.

My voice choked on pleas,

on words coaxing you to stay.

If you had heard

those plaintive sounds,

would you have stopped

and walked back quickly

to my outstretched arms?

Your answer may be folded

in the hidden hands of fate,

but I am here alone,

ignoring irony and grieving,

grieving deeply, for the loss

of what was never mine.

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Dee C. KonradNorthbrook, Illinois

dkonrad@aol.com

ESSENCE OF EXPERIENCE

The idea of epiphanyhas always puzzled me.It captures my attentionsince it obviously relatesto a type of mysteryaffecting our emotions,our minds, our souls.

Definitions will not suffice;I need more that speaksto my interior self.Will I sense if I have one?Can an epiphany occurwithout my recognitionof its unusual import?

Is it even possibleto examine situationsoffering a true epiphany?What if I misinterpretsome moments in my lifeor an intuitionand boast, in Joycean style,“I’ve had one;that was my epiphany!”

Who will check?Who will refute that bold,possibly incorrect,interpretation? Will I knowwithout a doubt?

Could my questions or introspectionprompt my first epiphany?The essence of this experienceboth baffles and seduces me.

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Angie LedbetterBaton Rouge, Louisiana

AngieDLed@aol.com

EYES TO SEE

Two crew cut heads press together closeAs a visitor one pew back sits in awe.Brothers, parted by a year or moreSquirm beside Pops who sees only their flaws.

The boys study a bold-hued bug book,Not seeing the frown shot their way,Nor the longing in the woman’s lookWho beholds their love, is inspired to pray.

With restraint the stranger clasps her hands,Tries hard to resist the growing temptationTo caress heads’ landscapes, foreign lands,Two young innocents in an insect nation.

The older boy’s right ear and the younger’s leftSlide like thick letter into envelope,A small head snuggles sibling’s arm crook cleft,Giving worshipers a glimpse of heaven’s hope.

How comfortable, comforted they sitExploring queen bees and honeycombs,Safe and sheltered, interlocking fitWith those seeking comfort far from home.

So wonderfully warm the two must beLearning of God’s nature through whispers sharedInstead of martyred saints’ droning homily,And observers too, through boys’ golden-haired.

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Angie LedbetterBaton Rouge, Louisiana

AngieDLed@aol.com

MOTHERS OF EASTER

Salmon colored shrimp plants canopy azalea-thick hedges

As mother mourning dove hoo-hoo-ahs from a hanging pot.

She keeps her downy birdlings safe far from the edges,

Searches for baby food on the lawn freshly dew-dropped.

Serene cement Madonna oversees quiet morning patio

Of family still drowsing, hugging sleep in their beds.

Doing her son’s work, enshrined in chipped blue grotto,

She wears a clumsy clover halo placed round her head.

Fuchsia tennis ball lies by forgotten Impatiens

Near gray momma dog grown too old for puppy play.

Sprawled on her side by the backdoor, a warm vacation

After decades of watchdog duty day after day.

From stained crockery cup, chicory coffee steams

Atop a dog-eared book. Offering morning tithes,

A woman steeps in the company of her dreams,

Makes menus, lists her day, waits for the rising.

Ice-cream scoop trowel tastes fresh fertile soil,

As she buries petunia roots with little thought at all.

Later, her hands almost touch in prayer, form ovals on foil.

She plants bulbs and rolls Easter Sunday meatballs.

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Jamie L. MauldinNewport, Kentucky

tenfatcats@yahoo.com

RITUALS OF COMFORT

in times of crisis

necessary chores become rituals of comfort

taking out the garbage has a cleansing affect

making me decide what matters

washing dirty laundry permeates stagnant air with freshness

and provides me with options

grocery shopping satiates desires

filling my barren shelves with temporary abundance

if I can restore order by doing the ordinary

perhaps there is hope that peace will come again

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Gwen MonahanCulpeper, Virginia

SEASONAL WRAPS

Winter swept in on us

like pocketfuls of fog.

Quilting lower levels first.

Later, over-all.

Just when we felt hopeful

fall would somehow last,

(How could such rich drapes

of shades fade?), there was a blast

from a coat of numbing air

which never seemed to leave.

Just varied by degrees,

Cold or colder.

Now we remember only dreams

of those warm autumn hues

that held us tree-stunned once.

Wrapped in color

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Elaine MorganWarrenton, Virginia

SHADOW IN THE ORCHARD

You sit and nod in the public sanctuaryintoxicated by the nectar of forgetfulness.I smile and buzz like a hungry bumble beegorging on decaying matter, seekingleft-over remnants from years before theautumn harvest.

You ferment in the hands of strangerswho hardly bother to grin at the faded barbsand blooms of your old irascibility.I laugh the way I always did, watching you tarryin the field of grace. No one remembers hearingthe scream of your seed as it broke through the soilof love and rooted in the pain of its original wounding.

I’m stung by a bittersweet ache in the pit of my ownfruit when I bite into our history, laughing and cryingat the same time. I feel the mercy of amber sapdrip slowly onto your withered heart as we both drinkof the truth that love is not synonymous for killor being killed.

You teach me as you cling to the tree of life in your owngrove. You heal my bruised and broken skin with strokesof dry old woman hands, exposing me to know myselfand finally come to sample love instead of its polarity.

Gathering my thoughts into a thorny bouquet,I say goodbye, stung to my core by lingeringsummer memories.

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Elaine MorganWarrenton, Virginia

BECOMING

The orphan branchfrom last spring’s rebirthoff the old willow treealready weeps green tearson flagstone cheeks.

Those mimosa seedlingsplay touch metouch me notas nascent wild rosesin another potwonder how highthey will climbthe weathered trellis.

A red oak saplingbends to the tickleof a southern breezeas it dreams of almosttouching the sun.

That cluster of clay potslike swirls of cinnamonand nutmegattend the patiowith me.

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Elaine MorganWarrenton, Virginia

GENEROSITY

I only had to say I liked them. Admired thema lot. The etched gold earrings from Alvito, Italy.The antique cameo worn on her satin wedding dress.The twin pearl ring from another anniversary.

Grandma. Giving adornments away. Mementos,she called them, passing them on to her first granddaughterbecause she didn’t like them anyway. Or so she saidat the time, wryly smiling as she muttered somethingabout not wanting to look like a fancy Christmas tree.My adolescent mind agreed. Generous, loving, kind,I mused, all the while preening as she mirrored back to meeverything she lost before my nascent day.

I remember wistful, faded blue eyes. Vague longings.Obligatory smiles masking yesterdays old-fashionedfeminine white lies. I hardly noticed the pale crinkledcheeks, the feigned wan smile. Until today, as I carefullypack the gold Ram head earrings, the tiny diamond studs,the gaily-colored hair barrettes, wondering what elseI don’t really want to give away.

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Julie TeeceW. Springfield, Massachusetts

jteece@student.umass.edu

THE WEIGHT OF WATER

Grasping fruitlessly...dreaming in tones of gray

my world slips through my fingerslike so many years of sand

it seems like my quiet desperation,my hopes and neon aspirations,

lay so many leagues out of reach.

And I can’t hold my breath forever

No matter how long I diveit is always a fingertip away

and my desire waxes and wanesalong with my senses of pride and humiliation

I can’t hold my breath forever.

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Art SchwartzRockville Centre, New York

SMALL TARZAN IN A TREE

On a wintry day I hung a tire from a sturdy branch of the willowand you swung like some small Tarzan in a tree,

While I watched you at a certain distance,silent and still, unthinkingof defense against the cold,

Unthinking of some disappointment,or some wish or opportunity, or of regrets,or anything before I flung the rope

And hung the tire and you swunguntil the sky got dark and freezingrain began to fall about the time

You swung much higher andyou whooped while I, content to be a place unoccupied was like

The willow in the rain exceptfor sounds like whoops, and imagesof some small Tarzan in a tree.

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Art SchwartzRockville Centre, New York

THE SPARROWS

The mobs of sparrows have come again,dropped in the bush with ivory flowers,doing their screeching and hopping squall,crazy as loons for several hours.

Is it some cruel barometric changethat drives these birds to their small riotagainst skies this month whose dreary casteare the very colors of disquiet?

On the other hand, consider this,that there is a moment every yearof ecstacy for perfected birds,fulfilled, arriving now and here,

And this is a clamorous Jubileefor survivors of a troubled season;a most profound celebration bysparrows offered to higher reason.

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Marie WoodSun City, Florida

QUESTIONS IN THE NIGHT

Death came in quickly on a moonless night,

So silently I didn’t know ‘til dawn

So swiftly I didn’t have time to tell you

How very much I still loved you.

Now I sleep alone in bed

With a small light in the room

So I won’t be taken by surprise.

Death, you did your job well,

And very peacefully this time.

But I have a question

I must ask through my tears.

Do you ever make mistakes?

There were two of us in the room that night

And it was very, very dark.

Are you sure you took the right one?

HEÌRT Page 21

HEART BOOK REVIEW The Nikki O’Baire Story

What the Locusts Had Eaten

as told to writer Jennifer Evans

One of the fascinating things

about Nikki O’Baire’s true

story is that she actually lived to

tell it. Her journey takes us

through an abusive broken

childhood, early-age marriage and

many failed relationships,

addiction to drugs and alcohol,

brushes with the law, and her near

death mafia experience.

Nikki proved we can move on

and beyond our past and trust God

to provide help and hope from

surprising and unexpected sources. Jennifer Evans, a seasoned writer and

dedicated Christian, recognized a redemption story in the life of Nikki

O’Baire, and hopes others will see the redemptive value of their own lives.

Others who are, as Jennifer puts it, “...victims who become wounded

parents...who look for love in all the wrong places... who have given up

on prayer.” As Jennifer says, “God never wastes our pain.”

I have always preferred reading biographical reality over fiction and

fantasy. It is amazing to discover how someone’s life unfolds, how the

choices we make–or others make for us–put us on pathways that could

easily destroy us. Nikki O’Baire refused to let difficult circumstances

rule her life. Instead, she turned to God and received strength to

overcome and grace to become someone with hopeful drive and

determination that could only come from God.

To order your copy, visit www.xulonpress.com.

Read it and reap! – C.L. Martin, Editor

HEÌRT Page 22

“I always begin my prayer in silence, for it is in the silence of the

heart that God speaks. God is the friend of silence. We need to

listen to God because it’s not what we say, but what He says to

us and through us that matters.”

– Mother Teresa

HEÌRT Page 23

Connie Lakey MartinOrangeburg, South Carolina

heart@sc.rr.com

THE TIME IT TAKES

Time is gobbling up all the good sweet glory days,

all the trimmings of friends, and trappings of family,

making a Thanksgiving feast of me and mine,

as though time fears I am its last meal,

my healthy appetite for life no match its hunger.

What is time, a mere methodical measurement,

keeping track, order, the distance that defines us,

refines us, time, precious time,

covers multitudes of sins

and, in good time, restores, reclaims us.

Thinkers work to bend its limits,

only dreamers know ways to escape

its fast and furious boundaries, yet time,

ruthless time, respects no one.

Time, thought I had it all, turns out

it has all of me, and still not enough.

I hope I never solve the mystery of time,

of longing and looking ahead, redeeming time

and time again, reaching for words to match

these endless, bottomless feelings,

and reasons to give time more

than the time it takes.

HEÌRT Page 24

HE ARTFULLY

There’s an old saying:

What is painful to endure today, may be

sweet to recall tomorrow.

My heart tends to border on

overwh elming extremes: melancholy

melodramatic or bursting with joy.

Seldom in between.

What do you do when your heart is

overwhelmed? Do you sit, stare? Act like nothing’s happening inside? Weep? Leap?

Shout? Call a friend? Do you pray– Oh God, it’s getting worse! Or, Thank you God, it’s

getting better! Dear God, I am overwhelmed!

Life, and being overwhelmed, is like trying to catch the perfect ocean wave and

body surfing to shore. First, you tangle with swirling surf and incoming waves too small

to ride but big enough to knock you down. Each time you get back up, better ready for

the next. Suddenly, a Very Big Tall Wave swells,

curling as if it would swallow you. Too close to

turn and ride, you can’t outrun it. Best thing, dive

through it, head first! Seems incredible, but that

monster wave will wash gently over you and you’ll

feel you’ve just overwhelmingly cheated death.

Finally, there it is, and there you are,

positioned just right. You surrender with all your

heart to the perfect wave for the ride of a lifetime–

safely back to shore, where you first began.

For some, one ride in life is enough. Others,

like me, begin the process all over again. Go back

out, tangle swirling surf, small annoying waves, get

knocked down, get back up, dive head first into

sudden overwhelming swells, but always watching,

waiting to be in the right position when the perfect

wave appears.

We who repeat the process know how

wonderful the ride back to shore is. And some of

us just loved being overwhelmed.

– Connie Lakey Martin, Editor