SANDRA REDMOND (SANDY PETERS)

Today, SHINE features two poems by the talented Sandra Redmond (Sandy Peters), who I also happen to call my mom, and whose birthday is today -- happy birthday!! Poetry lovers, please enjoy these two fantastic poems, "The Price of Progress" and "Galaxy, which seems particularly fitting for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday here in America. Wishing all of my fellow Americans a happy Thanksgiving and safe travels. We'll see you back here next month with a special excerpt from the forthcoming inaugural print issue of SHINE!

The Price of Progress

All the places we used to walk and talk:  
In Dockum’s Drugstore, or a quick bowl
Of soup at Red’s Chili Parlor Shop,

Not far from a sale at Buck’s Department Store,
Or, in Innes Tea Room, to relax, drink, and talk;
Woolworth’s for Kleenex, Mars Bars, or –

To replace ripped hose – checking out clothes
   racks in Thurston’s front door,
Browsing in Goldblatt’s Book and Stationary Store,
Hoping for rings at Helzberg Diamonds, or borrowing cash
   from Metro Loan’s second floor.

Douglas’ marble, iron, and stone, now replaced or insured
   by a steel-girder’s hold
Looms down with shadows on what didn’t last,
To find cracked sidewalks, empty of then

When front doors once opened to welcome the crowd,
   where the daytime shopped;
Now lies desolate from its once harried flock, those deliberate
   shoppers who checked the new styles
During their noontime breaks from the clock.

Downtown iron, now steel and granite high-rises,
Shadow the vacant sidewalk.
Brick and mortar, soon to be rubble, are loaded by shovel,
   trucked off to a dump.

Bullet-proof windows, doors coded by lock,
LED flex shines with fiber hue.
No problem, no worries, no fear for the few,

With security designs which protect its own flock.

Galaxy

Soon the leaves will fall, and I will too;
When motion in the wind grows still,

Swirling from the ground reveals
What’s real, and I will too.

For there are never secrets in the air.
They show up on the beach and in the sea,

A recompense for living on this global sphere.
When seasons change, birds re-appear.

There is no separate place to view
What we can see among the stars

With every telescope that’s yet to be.
This cosmos holds the I and we.

So live and praise this galaxy,
Give thanks for mammal, fish, and tree,

As I will also give my thanks, as long as I am me.

Sandra Redmond (Sandy Peters) is a retired teacher and homemaker, who writes from her home in Devon, PA. She earned her M.A. in Creative Writing from Wichita State University (KS) and an M.A. in History from Missouri State University. She is also an award-winning visual artist who regularly exhibits in and around Chester County (PA). Sandy is a lifelong poet, playwright, short-story writer, and musician who enjoys her local theare and spending time with loved ones.

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