Poems by Clarice

By Larry Powell

Poetry, according to William Wordsworth, is the spontaneous overflow of feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. There is, as sometimes declared, more truth than poetry in this and similarly perceptive observations. However, let us also allow that not all poetry is spontaneous, neither does it always originate in tranquility, as explained by the Introduction and confirmed by the content of this little book.

Poems by Clarice do indeed represent the overflow of feelings, but spontaneous and tranquilly generated, they are not. For Clarice, tranquility was a personally wrestled-out refuge from which any overflow was, carefully calculated and intentionally managed.

Spontaneity is not always good, especially when resulting in a brutally slammed, blink-of-the-eye, heart breaking, catastrophic event upon an unsuspecting twelve-year-old girl; a tragedy which, not only annihilated the present, but forever reconfigured the future. At some time, we dont know how long following the sudden death of her father, Clarice established some modicum of equilibrium by intentional centering. And she wrote, repeatedly, repetitively extending soulful versifications to those she held dear. To read them, is to become acquainted with those to whom they were written, as well as the one to whom this book is dedicated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491763896

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POEMS BY CLARICE

Copyright © 2015 Larry Powell.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-6388-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6389-6 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 03/31/2015

Contents

Introduction

I The Scribble Book

Daddy

Don’t Complain

The Frown

What it takes to Win

The Birth of Christ

Daddy

Mother

Daddy

My Pal

Baby Lindbergh

Verse to Daddy

To Sis

Thanksgiving

A Vision

Farm and Ranch

Mother

My Baby

To A Friend

To Grandpa

A Soldier

Little Boots

My Little Boy

My Soldier

A Soldier

My Star is Blue

Prayer for the soldiers in the Philippines

Soldiers’ Prayer

(Song) One in a Million

(Song) Mother and Home

(Song) Land of Delight

I’ll Be Waiting

Mother (1960)

Let’s Do Our Part

Keep Faith

Lines to a Soldier

II Outside the Scribble Book

To My Boy of Sixteen

Playing Games

Dear Son

Reminiscing

Content

Valley Reflections

Looking Up

Cloud Thoughts

Sunshine’s Coming

(Song) Waiting for My Call to Glory

I am Rich!

My Friend

On Love (Romans 12:9 through 21)

No Secret

Observation

Prayer

Our Soldiers

Letter to a Soldier

Attention

Consolation

I’m Not Alone

Living Together

Dearest Mother

(Song) Make Me Worthy

A Tribute to Mrs. Frances Sefers

My Prayer

Mary Kay

My Two Larry’s

To the Seniors of ’57

Be Thankful

Pray

Tomorrow

On Independence Day

Christmas

Let’s Go to Church

Tribute to Elwanda Weems

Tribute to a Great Lady

III Mother’s Day Poems (1965 – 1993)

Epilogue

Dedicated

To

Clarice Laverne Powell

(Pictured on cover, circa 1929)

Introduction

Clarice Laverne Gammill gasped to inhale her first independent breath on September 24, 1915 in Tyronza, Arkansas, a small flatland community in Poinsett County, allegedly named for an American Indian chief. Into this obscure setting, sparsely populated by strong-minded residents callously inured to long days of muscle-wrenching labor, Clarice was born. She was the middle child of Maude (White) and Sandy Gammill. Winfred Ruth was the older sister, James Vaughn, the younger brother. Maude was, without equivocation, consummately dutiful, gentle-spirited, devoted, and twisted her long brown hair into a tight, low bun secured by a contoured bone comb. Sandy, a large, muscular, ruggedly handsome man, hired out as a ‘logger’ for one of the local timber companies. Tragically, he would die of pneumonia when Clarice was but twelve years of age. The unexpected, shocking loss of husband and father was immeasurably devastating. Immediately, Maude, discovered herself brutally thrust into the position of being solely responsible for herself and three totally bereft children in a remote, economically challenged environment, and (even more forbidding) timberland was a man’s world, constantly requiring physical and mental fortitude stoked by unwavering stamina. Surely, it must have seemed as if the door to the future had not only abruptly, but cruelly closed with a deafening slam. But that is another story.

2.ClariceVaughnandRuthGammillcirca1921copy.jpg

{Clarice, Vaughn, and Ruth Gammill, circa 1921}

At some point during the process of aforementioned circumstances, Clarice was baptized in the Tyronza River. Either prior to or following the traumatic, untimely death of her father, she commenced the practice of frequently withdrawing mentally into her private inner-sanctum. The solitary place. The centering place. The thinking place. The place for sorting out everything tangled, scattered, or confounding. The place for thinking reasonably and distilling reason into rhyme. Rhyme and reason; two things she desperately pursued … and needed.

Eventually, ruminations began to be squeezed out the end of a pencil onto whatever paper happened to be available at the time. God and sod, …war and peace, family and personal loss, mama, sister, brother … she wrote it all down; always reasonable, to her mind, and always rhymed. Rhyme, for her, represented the irrevocable, perfect crown of harmony, the ultimate ballast for equilibrium; to wit, rhyme is the capstone of reason. Nothing, she allowed, can be reasonable unless it is sensible; all the numbers must add up; conclusions must be logical. Perfect reason is achieved only when it rhymes, or simply put, when everything comes together in concert. And so she wrote … and wrote.

At some time, unknown to me, the Gammill family relocated to Nettleton, Arkansas, another small flatland town, named for George Henry Nettleton (Kansas City railroad magnate for whom four other towns in the U. S. are named), where all three siblings would graduate high school.

On October 20th, 1935, Clarice married Reginald Hill Powell, the ceremony being solemnized by Methodist clergyman, Rev. H. J. Couchman. Reginald, a tender-hearted, hard-muscled, mentally tough, man from the country, possessed many of the same rugged attributes as Sandy Gammill. A resemblance of no small significance.

During the early years of their marriage, Reginald hired out successively to: (1) one of two railroads that intersect in Nettleton, carrying crossties and laying track; (2) the Singer Sewing Machine plant in Trumann, Arkansas; (3) the W. P. A. (Work Progress Administration), constructing roads, earthen dams, small lakes, and log structures at numerous Arkansas parks; and (4) in September of 1939, the R. E. A. (Rural Electrification Administration) as a construction Lineman. Three months later, I was born. Ergo, subsequent references to Clarice and Reginald henceforth will naturally transition to ‘mother’ and ‘dad.’

The two preceding paragraphs are included for two specific reasons. First, to recount that mother was born into an almost obscure environment fraught with hard circumstances. However, she was fortunate to have been raised in a love-filled, God-honoring home possessing a high moral consciousness coupled with a