Shards of Light and Threads of Thought: Poems

By Mary Elizabeth Lee

I think of the many minds who have met this poets love of life. Her life and travels have given her many things to include in her poetry and she writes deftly about nature, childhood memories, and thoughts that are sometimes mine as well. I enjoyed the entire first book of poems from beginning to end and found pleasure with many surprises.

The poem Mystery from her first book Beveled Edges and Mitered Corners is one of my favorite when she and her sister were helping plant seeds: [We] knew Sister gave/each seed a mate/Two seeds to a hill--/one to grow, one to wait. I can hardly wait for Lees second book to appear.

Elizabeth Ann Watkins Ferguson,

The Louisiana State Poetry Society, President,

Founders Chapter, Poet Laureate 1999-2000

As her titles suggest, Lee comes to truth obliquely. Her poems have the precision, the carefully measured lines, the apt materials and spare tensions of fine carpentry. They frame moments which can never be caught with a direct look: moments of joy and wonder, anger and loss.

She brings nature and life into focus for us, And not only makes us see things anew, but lets us participate, dancing among the trees like her ballerinas in disguise in her first book. She continues to reveal her keen eye for imagery and sensitivity to the sounds of language in her second book, Shards of Light and Threads of Thought.

Keith McClure, Associate Professor of English at

Baton Rouge Community College and the

editor of Black and Rouge Review.

Mary Elizabeth Lee is an observer of life and her surroundings. In her second collection of poetry, she reflects on her daily experiences that mirror her walk through life as a teacher, professor, administrator, and lover of nature.

Lees poems begin by exploring the four seasons that bring the promise of spring, new white rootlets, raindrops, and a bitter cold that quietly invades a farmhouse at night. As she gracefully moves into reflections that highlight life experiences, she lyrically scrutinizes a craftsmans talents, the whishing of a butane heater, and the fears of a politician. Lee brings her collection to a close by looking within and exploring relatable feelings like obsession, love, and grief as she rides the cool breezes of her mind.

Shards of Light and Threads of Thought shares poems that reflect on one womans journey through life as she quietly observes the world around her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491796443

Mary Elizabeth Lee

Mary Elizabeth Lee earned a masters degree in liberal arts (English) from the University of Louisiana at Monroe, Louisiana. Her poems have appeared in Black and Rouge Review (2008-2010), and she is author of the poetry collections Beveled Edges and Mitered Corners and Shards of Light and Threads of Thought. Mary currently resides in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

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Copyright © 2016 Mary Elizabeth Lee.

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 author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-9643-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9644-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016911060

iUniverse rev. date: 7/29/2016

Contents

Part 1

Memories

Red Rose

Promise of Spring

Arborescence

Happy Lilies

Nature and Sweet Gums

Raindrops

Spring Entourage

Convention

Velvet Spider

Winter in the Deep South

Winter Art

The Place for Window Glass

Lesson in Safety

Rats

Scavengers

Deserted Farmland

Bully

A Breeze

Fly

The Song of the River

More

Snapshots of Nature

Part 2

Artisan

Craftsman

Modern Paul Bunyan

Earth Girl

Stars

Butane Heater

Someone Else

Attendant

Hot Buffalo Wings

The Card

In a Calendar Year

Politician

Touring Adventure

Angelic Spirit

Dark Brown Recliner

Rose

Part 3

Protocol

Her Baby, the Woman

Cold Babble

Slanted Glance

Forgetting Old Loves

Haunted House

Filament of Life

Upon Reading Dugan’s Mock Translation

Unruly Hours

Cloaked Voice

Upon Reading Langston Hughes’ As I Grew Older

Soft Words

Change in Big Easy

Downturn

At Fifty

Courage

My Own Worst Enemy

At the Foot of the Trees

Choices

Zero

Obsession

Companion

Space for Lease

The Game of Conversation

Gift of Soap

The Flute

No New Myths

Speed Limit

Sterile Visit

Duplicity

Too Often

Changing of Classes

Decision

The Subject of Beauty

Ad

Publishing Notes

Ampersand

Drive By

Second Opinion

Grooming Glove

Lost Garbage Can

Shared Grief

Conundrum

The Norm

Nights of Mythic Fantasies

Barry Cox’s Church of Live Trees

Questions Still

Pride

The Need to Pace

Figment

A Sight to See

Fickle Success

Miss Molly

Chill

Sisterhood

Ars Amoris and Ars Poetica

The Muse Spurned

From the Corner of My Eye

Moments in a Day

For my love

Part 1

The timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness

and knows that yesterday is today’s memory and tomorrow

is today’s dream.

—Kahlil Gibran

Memories

I turned over a mound

of memories and sent

them scurrying through

the foothills of my mind.

Under the cape of an afternoon’s

stillness, I watched each spring

for the rows and rows of yellow daffodil

and narcissus often hidden by the drift

of fallen leaves, the first appearances

of separate clusters of black-eyed Susans

nestled along the tree-lined gorges

and the thickets stumbling closer

to the sides of the rushing stream.

I spent my hot summer nights in sticky

stillness, listening to the bullfrog’s

call for rain from the shrinking water

hole and the choruses of fiddling crickets

serenading mates in the cooler evening

grasses. Out my bedroom window,

the lonely whip-poor-will called from the

tall pine at the north corner, memories

floating from their cachet like incense

rising as a feather duster of thunder

shook out rumbles in the distance.

Red Rose

Against the tall rye grass,

the red rose

among gray planks

is the lone resident

of the collapsing

wooden structure.

The tenant farmers who

sheltered their families

on the bare plank floors,

sparsely decorated

with straight-back chairs,

have left no lasting mark.

The musty sweat smell

of human beings

has long dissipated

in the gray silence.

Only pieces of an abandoned

calendar blight the