Word and Witness

by Buckner, Sally

• ISBN13: 9780890896860
• ISBN10: 0890896860
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-09-01
• Publisher: Carolina Academic Press

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Century of Poetry	p. 3
On Hatteras Bar	p. 17
The Guerdon	p. 18
Twilight	p. 18
By the Swannanoa	p. 19
The Wolf	p. 20
Life and Love	p. 21
Spring	p. 21
Autumn	p. 22
The Counselor	p. 22
Wishing	p. 23
The Cycle's Rim: XXXVI	p. 24
Twilight	p. 24
Birth	p. 24
Men of America	p. 33
Stopping in Albert Behind the Germans	p. 34
The Bitterroots	p. 35
The Spanish Loyalist	p. 36
Stride on the Desert	p. 36
In Memory: Northern Navajo	p. 37
Fifty Acres	p. 38
Homer in a Garden	p. 39
God	p. 39
Song for the Silent	p. 40
Long Distance, 1944	p. 41
New Weather	p. 42
Love Is a Deep and a Dark and a Lonely	p. 42
Personalia	p. 43
The Oceans of Dr. Johnson	p. 44
January Jasmine	p. 44
Postcard from Here	p. 45
The Bright Plain	p. 46
Witness for the Defense	p. 46
The Player Piano	p. 48
The Mockingbird	p. 49
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner	p. 49
Inner Ear	p. 50
Old Arrowhead Thoughts of a Late War	p. 50
Cardinal	p. 51
Widows of Lidice	p. 51
Lynching	p. 52
Boy on the Back of a Wagon	p. 53
Blotting Paper	p. 53
Uptight	p. 54
Enthusiast	p. 61
Aunt Creasy, On Work	p. 61
Credo	p. 62
Beaucoup Buttercups	p. 62
The Flower-Hunter in the Fields	p. 62
Love Knows	p. 64
Ironweed	p. 64
In Case of Danger	p. 64
How, for love, no poem will do	p. 66
The Yucca Moth	p. 67
Zero and Then Some	p. 67
Apologetics	p. 69
Giving Up Word with Words	p. 69
Maximus, to Himself	p. 71
God as Magician	p. 73
Planet Eight	p. 73
Word	p. 75
Deserted Farm	p. 76
For James	p. 76
When We Dropped the Bomb	p. 77
An Image of Lichen	p. 78
Skimmers	p. 79
Wreath	p. 79
Audubon's Flute	p. 80
The Gift of Tongues	p. 81
Mountain Bride	p. 82
Vietnam War Memorial	p. 83
from Dark Testament	p. 84
Goldfinches	p. 86
Lizard	p. 86
Strangers Like Us: Pittsburgh, Raleigh, 1945-1985	p. 87
Whose Children Are These?	p. 87
Something I Know about Her	p. 89
Carolina's Boat People	p. 90
Haiku	p. 90
Redounding	p. 91
Memory in February	p. 92
Cisternal Anecdote	p. 93
The Weather Wizard's Cloud Book	p. 93
Valentine with Hyphens, for CLS-S	p. 94
Topsail Beach/Columbus Day	p. 95
Singing Hymns Late at Night for My Father	p. 96
Nightmare Inspection Tour for American Generals	p. 97
Fast Ball	p. 99
A Prayer for the Mountains	p. 99
Grace Before Meat	p. 100
The Stories	p. 100
Earthsleep	p. 100
Makura-Kotoba	p. 102
General John Meditates on Being Lonely	p. 103
But to Tell the Truth	p. 103
Things That Are True of Blue	p. 104
October Statement	p. 105
That Summer	p. 105
Seasons	p. 106
The Girl in the Green Bathing Suit	p. 106
The Marked and Unmarked	p. 107
Breadstuff	p. 108
Seventh Grades	p. 108
Loss of Memory	p. 109
Grammar	p. 110
Brier Losing Touch with His Traditions	p. 111
Restoring an Old Farmhouse	p. 112
Some Notes on Courage	p. 113
The Night We Sang	p. 113
First Instruction in Prayer	p. 115
When I Know the Power of My Black Hand	p. 116
On Listening to the Spirituals	p. 116
First Christmas	p. 118
A Heron, A Deer - A Single Day	p. 118
Hitting the Old Mark	p. 120
Augury	p. 121
Box-Camera Snapshot	p. 122
Prophecy	p. 123
The Clouded Leopards of Cambodia and Viet Nam	p. 124
A Good Woman Feeling Bad	p. 125
The Bread and Butter of Life	p. 126
Memory	p. 126
Temple-Building	p. 127
The Craft Entering the Body	p. 128
Cooking the Books	p. 129
A Forge of Words	p. 131
The Morning After	p. 132
Storm in the Briar Patch	p. 132
A Leaf of Tobacco	p. 133
Cowpasture Baseball # 1	p. 135
I Want to Make the Drums Talk Again	p. 136
Myth: To the Fourth Generation	p. 137
In Memoriam - for Guy Owen	p. 138
from "Seasons Such as These"	p. 139
Blue Hosanna	p. 139
Dowry	p. 140
That Sunday	p. 141
When the Water Wore My Face	p. 142
Meditation	p. 143
Shadows That Steep in Dreams of the New Ground	p. 144
When January Is Cold	p. 145
When in the Sun I Dream	p. 145
Tobacco Days	p. 146
Hymn to the Tenants	p. 147
Waiting for the Storyteller	p. 155
Sitting Out a War Once Removed	p. 155
La Dolce Vita	p. 156
The Yankee King	p. 158
Hospital Ship: Cua viet	p. 159
How the River Took Daughtry McLamb	p. 160
The 1950s	p. 161
Whatever There Was to Say	p. 161
On Watching Challenger	p. 163
Snake in Autumn	p. 164
The Eye Is Single	p. 165
A Whole Different Spin on the Ball	p. 166
Women on the Pamlico	p. 166
Birthright: To Catch the Light	p. 167
Text	p. 168
What Color Is the Sun?	p. 169
After	p. 170
Dogwood Again	p. 172
Honky Tonk Stradivarius	p. 173
A Memory Not Quite Abandoned	p. 174
Of Mother and Father	p. 174
The Runner	p. 175
Winter's Secrets	p. 176
Grandfather's Mandolin	p. 176
Cats at Twilight	p. 177
Around the Block	p. 177
Shooting Baskets at Dusk	p. 178
Cold Quilt	p. 178
Phantoum	p. 179
things break down	p. 181
praise song	p. 181
the griot's song	p. 182
Woman in a Red Dress	p. 183
Prose Poem for Claire Aubin Fort	p. 185
For Martin Luther King	p. 185
Night Student	p. 186
The Words	p. 187
Sneedsborough	p. 188
Body Bags	p. 189
Advice for Long Life	p. 191
Blue Ridge Parkway	p. 192
Rockin' a Man, Stone Blind	p. 193
Book of Ruth	p. 193
Mountain Time	p. 195
The Backwoods	p. 196
Diamonds	p. 197
Second Waking	p. 198
Vet	p. 198
Embroidery	p. 200
Piece by Piece	p. 201
X	p. 203
Teaching a Nephew to Type	p. 204
Between Losses	p. 205
Letter to No Address	p. 206
Mud Dancing	p. 207
Turn	p. 208
For her	p. 209
Pine Lake at Twilight	p. 210
Putting Up Damson Preserves	p. 211
I'll be calling you up tonight	p. 212
The Sunday Facts of a Partly Cherished Life	p. 213
Evening Light	p. 215
Survival	p. 216
The Canticle of the Skeleton	p. 217
Morning Song	p. 220
Dialogue Concerning a Blue Convertible	p. 221
Lying Out	p. 223
Bubble	p. 223
Weave Room	p. 224
Big House	p. 225
I'll Fly Away	p. 225
The James River Express	p. 227
Father-Son Basketball, 1970	p. 228
Another Valentine	p. 229
The Secret	p. 229
Passage	p. 231
Postcard	p. 232
Bear	p. 233
The Song Poem	p. 234
Pathway: From Son to Father	p. 234
Raleigh Jazz Festival, 1986	p. 235
From Desert Storm: A Brief History	p. 236
Magic Fathers	p. 237
Heaven	p. 238
Learning How to Pray	p. 239
Driving Home	p. 240
Two and One	p. 241
Clarissa and the Second Coming	p. 242
Solidarity in the Night	p. 243
Ahlawe Usv' Tsigesvgi	p. 243
Invisible Tongues	p. 244
Let's Say We Haven't Seen Each Other since Ninth Grade and We Meet as Adults at a Welcome Center in Southside, Virginia	p. 245
Eleventh Grade: 1971	p. 247
High Noon at the Matinee	p. 248
Lot's Wife Looks Back	p. 249
This River	p. 250
Yeast Rolls and Water Biscuits	p. 251
Barrel of Prayer	p. 252
Immigrants	p. 253
U.S.	p. 254
My Father Never Talked of Love	p. 255
Ahaluna	p. 256
Apocalypse	p. 257
Tending and Turning	p. 258
Cafe Au Lait	p. 258
Dogwood Alarm	p. 259
How Long Did It Take?	p. 260
Afterword	p. 263
Major North Carolina Literary Awards	p. 267
Biographical Notes	p. 273
Selected Bibliography	p. 299
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