Poetry Lovers,
Welcome back to SHINE - Featured Poets Series! Though I typically feature contemporary poets, as a special treat for National Poetry Month, today, it is my honor to posthumously publish the work of mid-20th century poet, Betty Wolcott Sandall. It is with the permission of Wolcott Sandall's family, that I share with you from a small chapbook called, Remembering. Please enjoy her beatiful lyric poems "Appointment for Spring," "Note of Challenge," and "I Could Not Speak a Word" -- the last of which addresses a core American social issue that was as relevant in Wolcott Sandall's day, as it was a century earlier when Emma Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus," or as it is in our own. Thank you, Candy Carlson, for keeping your grandmother's lovely words and legacy alive.
Welcome back to SHINE - Featured Poets Series! Though I typically feature contemporary poets, as a special treat for National Poetry Month, today, it is my honor to posthumously publish the work of mid-20th century poet, Betty Wolcott Sandall. It is with the permission of Wolcott Sandall's family, that I share with you from a small chapbook called, Remembering. Please enjoy her beatiful lyric poems "Appointment for Spring," "Note of Challenge," and "I Could Not Speak a Word" -- the last of which addresses a core American social issue that was as relevant in Wolcott Sandall's day, as it was a century earlier when Emma Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus," or as it is in our own. Thank you, Candy Carlson, for keeping your grandmother's lovely words and legacy alive.
Appointment for Spring
I’ll wait where pale, green willows dream
Through idle hours
Above a trembling April stream.
Come sun or showers
I’ll wait for you where quickened buds awake
To startled wonder;
Till suddenly my breast will shake
With strange, sweet thunder.
Through idle hours
Above a trembling April stream.
Come sun or showers
I’ll wait for you where quickened buds awake
To startled wonder;
Till suddenly my breast will shake
With strange, sweet thunder.
Note of Challenge
Better no words were said, today, of Spring –
No whisper spoken. Wisely, the skeptic fears
To mention miracles, remembering
How hearts are rent by wraiths of happier years.
Better to leave assurance to the pale
Unfolding green of swamps; to birds which break
Cold silences. For should these signs all fail,
Such wild immortal beauty might not shake
The wold again. Wiser that we inure
Our hearts to meet the chill, the dark which lies
About; yet when Spring comes, undaunted, sure,
Could any human wish that he were wise?
No whisper spoken. Wisely, the skeptic fears
To mention miracles, remembering
How hearts are rent by wraiths of happier years.
Better to leave assurance to the pale
Unfolding green of swamps; to birds which break
Cold silences. For should these signs all fail,
Such wild immortal beauty might not shake
The wold again. Wiser that we inure
Our hearts to meet the chill, the dark which lies
About; yet when Spring comes, undaunted, sure,
Could any human wish that he were wise?
I Could Not Speak a Word
She beamed and ushered me across the sill.
“A nursery,” I cried and counted twelve,
Twelve dimpled roguish tots.
“This one is mine” –
She pointed to a cherub in a crib.
“And this” – it was a blue-eyed boy of two –
“And Jean,” a lovely child with curly hair;
“But all the rest are refugees.”
She paused
Expectantly. The room was far too still.
Somehow I could not speak a single word.
She was a sturdy ten-year-old and they –
Were paper dolls.
“A nursery,” I cried and counted twelve,
Twelve dimpled roguish tots.
“This one is mine” –
She pointed to a cherub in a crib.
“And this” – it was a blue-eyed boy of two –
“And Jean,” a lovely child with curly hair;
“But all the rest are refugees.”
She paused
Expectantly. The room was far too still.
Somehow I could not speak a single word.
She was a sturdy ten-year-old and they –
Were paper dolls.
Betty Wolcott Sandall,
of the American Northeast (who resided for a time in Burlington, Vermont), was an early/mid-20th century poet. Wolcott Sandall wrote under the psuedonym Mike O'Shay, and at least two of her poems were published in The New York Times during World War II. A chapbook of her poems, Remembering (depicted at Left), was compiled by her family.
of the American Northeast (who resided for a time in Burlington, Vermont), was an early/mid-20th century poet. Wolcott Sandall wrote under the psuedonym Mike O'Shay, and at least two of her poems were published in The New York Times during World War II. A chapbook of her poems, Remembering (depicted at Left), was compiled by her family.