In this her birth month, Living Above the Frost Line celebrates Glenda Council Beall as Poet of the Month of October.
Raised on a farm in southwest Georgia in the late forties and fifties with four brothers and two sisters, Glenda finds memories from childhood come to surface in her writing. She also writes about her husband, Barry, and their forty-five years together.
Glenda graduated from the University of Georgia with a teaching degree. She taught in both private and public school elementary grades. Now retired, she enjoys teaching senior adults who are eager to write their memoirs, family stories, and personal experiences. Glenda says she has taken numerous classes from the excellent instructors at John C. Campbell Fplk School , attended workshops and conferences and has learned the ends and outs of writing and publishing. She will offer two classes at J.C.C.F.S. in 2010.
Her poems have been published in Journal of Kentuky Studies,Georgia Journal, Appalachian Heritage, Main Street Rag and a number of other literary magazines.
Her chapbook, NOW MIGHT AS WELL BE THEN is scheduled for release in October 2009 at Finishing Line Press.
Three Poems by Glenda Council Beall
In The Dark
I lie here in bed, my cheek against your shoulder,
remembering a night, long ago, on your boat.
I was afraid. I felt too much, too fast.
But you were tender, and love crept over us
like silver fog, silent on the lake.
We were never again the same.
We stepped like children through that door that led
to long passages unknown, holding hands, wide-eyed, but brave.
Here I am years later, listening to your soft breath
and feeling your warm smooth skin.
In the dark, now might as well be then.
You Never Meet a Stranger
---for Barry
I watch you and I'm jealous. You talk
to people on the elevator, at the airport
standing in line, at the grocery store
in front of the cucumbers.
You are never lost for words, while I
stand stiff, my eyes averted from
the woman's waiting at the post office
window. I can't think of anything to say.
I fear the person will resent intrusion.
But you — you smile and
burst right in. The stranger's eyes
light up and suddenly she has
become your friend.
The Drive Home
I sit in the driver's seat
watching the ribbon of highway
unfold around each curve.
In the distance grey mountains
loom in misty mounds.
I fiddle with the radio.
Stop when I hear Mozart.
The steering wheel is hard
against my ungloved hands.
No more latex and plastic.
No mask to hide the musty
smell of my old car.
I shed all that inside
your hospital room, and left
without saying goodby,
afraid you'd see finality
in my eyes.
