Glenda Council Beall is Poet of the Month for October 2009

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.