A Few More Minutes: A Poetry Collection

By Brenda Livingston Bradley

Containing over 150 poems, A Few More Minutes explores themes of memory, time, relationships, loss, and travel. Brenda Livingston Bradley’s poems isolate an image or expression and through vivid language, these few minutes in time poignantly connect us to the human experience. Brenda has had a life-long love affair with poetry. After writing her first poems in junior high school, she continued writing through her 20’s followed by nearly two decades of silence. She resumed writing poetry in 2011 when visiting Kenya for the third time. What she discovered was a new poetic voice that was more in tune with her surroundings, a seasoned dialect cultivated through life’s joys and pains, and a distinct tone that resonated with those who read her work. After being diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer in April 2019, Brenda committed to making one of her life’s dreams reality – this book of poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796061321

Brenda Livingston Bradley

Brenda Livingston Bradley loves teaching, good books, a great metaphor, cooking, traveling, doing for others and spending time with her husband and two adult children. For the last 37 years she has taught middle school and high school in Georgia, Missouri, and Texas as well as university students (for 26 of those years). As a professor of English at McLennan Community College since 2008, she has also taught at Oklahoma Baptist University and at Baylor University. Although her poetry has been published in professional journals and other publications, A Few More Minutes is her first book of poetry. In Waco, Texas, she is a deacon in her church, a bread maker whose “Brenda bread” is highly coveted, and a person whose gift for hospitality impacts others.

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Copyright © 2019 by Brenda Livingston Bradley.

Library of Congress Control Number:     2019914832

ISBN:                Hardcover                           978-1-7960-6131-4

                        Softcover                             978-1-7960-6130-7

                        eBook                                   978-1-7960-6132-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/01/2019

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CONTENTS

PART I

SEASONS

NATURE

Abundance

Fermata

Approaching Storm

Change of Seasons

Stopping by Bluebonnets on a Sunday Morning

Papa’s Scuppernongs

Meet Me in St. Louis at Park Avenue

Blackberry Picking

LOSS

Mourning on Nanny’s Porch

Streetlights

Cleaning Your Closet

Zippy Doodle

Caught Between Two Griefs

As You Lay Dying

Song 88

The Power of a Smile

Slaughter of Innocents

A Thin Line

Unnoticed

Visitation

Empty Spaces

Summer Fruit

The Garden

I Want to Buy You Pretty Things

On Joy in the Morning

Not a Door

The Waiting Room

‘Mid Tubes and Blankets

FAITH

Advent

Not Yet

Among the Ashes

Yahweh

For This Moment

Faint as a Frightened Bird

Dust

Before the Dawn

Baraka za Mungu

Sometimes We Wait

Blessing

Breath of God

Memory

Pool in Decatur

Corner of Lee and 35

Worry Stories

Life in the Shadows

Broken Silence

Valley and Shadows

Scriptwriter

Sharp Memories

Starbucks Run

The Longing

TIME

The Bon Fire

Running South

My Life Will Go On

They May Never Be Remembered

Cracking Innocence

She Sent You Away to Pick Strawberries

Clay Pot

In the Meantime

Biscuits and Hot Coffee

Horseflies and Butterflies

Numbered Sunrises

Noticing Time

Mending Fences

Master Betrayer

Magnolias and Blue Bottles

Hotwheels and Invitations

Homeworker

Early Years Revisited

Somebody’s Little Boy

Copper Strand

RELATIONSHIPS

Anniversary

In the Garden

Everybody’s Got a Little Hot Pink Toe Polish in ‘Em!

Under the Hackberry

The Farmhouse

Afternoons and Coffeespoons

The ⁵th Afternoon

Woodway Park II

One Day

Upon the Occasion of Your High School Graduation: June 1, 2012

Evening in Calvert

In the Heat of the Day

On the San Antonio Riverwalk

Abandonment

Ten Steps Ahead

Rights

From the Balcony

Fierce Love

Miscellaneous

Being Mindful or How to Enjoy Your Day

The Pig House

Siri

Garage Sales

Private Doors and Chalk-Drawn Squares

Saved in America

Maybe …

Art

Blowing Bubbles

PART II

TRAVELING

FLIGHT

Seat 24B

Waste Receptacles

Sweeping in Dubai

Flight to Shanghai

Flight to Kenya

Blank Verse

In Flight

Flight of Fancy

CHINA

Suzhou Teacher Training: 3 Haiku

Rain Falls from Sky Like Blessings

Subway to Yushan Lu

Eating Dumplings in Shanghai Airport

First Morning in Suzhou

The Color of Suzhou on a Sunday

EL SALVADOR

Tito Drives Trucks

Aguilleres on a Sunday Morning

Basketball in La Palma

Beautiful Cakes We Bought at the Market

On the Streets of San Salvador

Santa Ana Winds

MALAYSIA

Gomantong Cave

A Malaysian Countryside

Fresh Fish from the Sulu Sea

View from a Mountaintop in Sapulut

Journey to Kudat I

Journey to Kudat II

KENYA

Leaving Kenya

Perspective

Offering (with apologies to Christina Rossetti)

Ambush

Every Day I Dream of Africa

Wishes Are Not Wings

So Funny, the Baboon

Circle of Life on Maasai Mara

Rain over Ndondori Hills

Buying Honey in Marigat

Centre of Hope – Kibera, Kenya

Kibera Samosas

Journey to Maasai Mara

Journey to Komolion

Balloon Safari

Amboseli

Baboon at Fig Tree

School Girl in Nairobi

Playing with Monkeys at Amboseli

African Rains

Heat of the Day

Elephant Challenge

Colorado

Settlers Loop

Bat of Darkness

Mountain High

Morning at Hawley Court

THE SOUTH

Wooded Secret

Off Highway 106

Butler County 59

Summer Haiku

Sounds of the South

Jogging with Jack

Picking Kumquats on New Year’s Eve

This book is lovingly dedicated to

Hannah and Isaac,

my prayed-for children, who challenge and inspire me

Randall, my husband and best friend, who supports, encourages, and loves me unconditionally

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Without a community of friends, this book would not have happened. Therefore, I want to thank my many friends and colleagues who have encouraged me to compile my poetry for publication. I am grateful to my friends from CCTE (Conference of College Teachers of English) for the opportunities to read my poems and receive their encouragement and input. I thank Jim McKeown who has read and critiqued many of my poems through the years. A special appreciation goes to Jeffrey DeLoto who encouraged me to pursue publishing and introduced me to Xlibris. I am grateful to Linda Cook who helped me categorize the poems and to Terry York, Elaine White, and Linda Cook who were each instrumental in helping me imagine a title. Most of all, I thank my family who have been my constant cheerleaders through the years – providing encouragement, listening to and critiquing first drafts, and especially providing subject matter for my poetry.

PART I

SEASONS

NATURE

ABUNDANCE

When I pluck the grapes

from the vine,

a bit of pulp always

remains on the stem.

Just enough for the birds

in my yard to have a snack.

Not much is better than warm,

sun-kissed grapes picked fresh

from the arbor we built

to create a shade in the late afternoon sun.

Of course, when I’m