{"id":1543,"date":"2010-10-01T11:45:43","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T19:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/keeneweb.org\/newsline\/?p=1543"},"modified":"2011-10-24T18:55:36","modified_gmt":"2011-10-24T18:55:36","slug":"three-poems-by-mary-benson-eder-creative-writing-scholar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.keene.edu\/newsline\/2010\/10\/01\/three-poems-by-mary-benson-eder-creative-writing-scholar\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Poems by Mary Benson, Eder Creative Writing Scholar"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Poet
Poet Mary Benson, recipient of the Eder Creative Writing Scholarship<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

KSC senior Mary Benson<\/strong>, of Chester, NH, has been awarded the Eder Creative Writing Scholarship, an impressive accomplishment. So impressive, in fact, that we thought we’d introduce her through three of her poems, a Newsline<\/em> first. Let us \u2013 and Mary \u2013 know what you think. If you’d like to know more about her, and the scholarship, see the news story on the KSC news page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Day of the Ladybugs<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I sweep the windowpane
\nand return to the Day
\nof the Ladybugs:<\/p>\n

the day we scraped crab-apples
\nfrom the lawn of the old couple
\nwho paid us two wrinkled
\nbucks-a-piece.<\/p>\n

We dropped the soiled fruit
\ninto gray wheel barrows
\nas you pelted my legs
\nand told me to keep counting,
\ncounting black apples
\nlike we counted the backs
\ndropping on our knees
\ncrusted with blood\u2014
\ndeep ladybug rouge<\/p>\n

like the rings under our father\u2019s eyes
\nas he sat sun burnt on the side-porch,
\nsmiling beneath beads of sweat,
\nfresh brew clenched
\nin his burgundy grip.<\/p>\n

Mom soaked in a lawn chair
\nreading books on other
\nwomens\u2019 lives,
\nwhile the baby napped
\nin the nook of her neck,
\nand we barreled home with
\ncrab-apple stains and ladybugs
\nlaced in our damp hair.<\/p>\n

That night I slept humid dreams
\nof insects roaming my eyelids.
\nI awoke and peered
\nfrom my window
\nat the vacant porch:<\/p>\n

Dad was hitching trains
\nfor the railroad,
\nmom was vacuuming houses
\nfor pay,
\nthe baby was hiding
\nbeneath heaps
\nof laundry, and you were always gone
\nfrom your unmade bed,<\/p>\n

and I sweep the windowpane
\nwith my fingernail:
\nlifting the dirt
\nof dead ladybugs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My Father Worked the Railroad<\/strong><\/h3>\n

My father worked the railroad
\nfor twenty-seven years,
\ntearing ticket stubs
\nfrom Boston to Pittsburgh
\nand back to Boston:<\/p>\n

His ears ringing
\niron whistles,
\nhis neck chafed beneath
\nthe ironed blue collar,
\nhis nose curled fat
\nwith six-bag bums.<\/p>\n

Five nights a week my father
\ncame home looking
\nlike a beat boxcar:
\nhis heavy boots scuffing
\nthe kitchen tile,
\neyes charred slate thin,
\nhair slicked stiff beneath
\nthe boxy black hat<\/p>\n

as he slouched in his
\narm-chair, sifting
\nthrough the Boston Globe,
\nreading the printed names
\nof missing men,
\nplunging from
\nthe splintered tracks:
\ndisjointed and slung like
\nsacks of lead lunging
\nover the iron rails.<\/p>\n

His voice would pipe dry
\nat the base of his throat:
\nhis eyes dead on the page
\nlike two stiff skulls
\nlining the rails
\nfrom Boston to Pittsburg
\nand back to Boston,<\/p>\n

And the names built
\nin my father\u2019s\u00a0 brass throat
\nlike burnt weeds
\nfor twenty-seven years.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What I Remember About the Snow<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Zipped fat in colored wool,
\nwe trolled knee-deep
\ntowards the far end of the yard–
\nmy brother a blue rubber ball,
\nme a pus-red zit,
\nmy mother’s face lit
\nin the kitchen window.<\/p>\n

Stephen dug into
\nthe ground, building
\na tunnel of barren rooms
\nwhile I lay back, belly-deep
\nbeside him\u2014
\nstaring into night.<\/p>\n

Ice clogged my boots.
\nCold sagged in my nose,
\nhung heavy on my eyelids,
\nburrowed in my ears
\nas the kitchen light
\nwent out:<\/p>\n

my mother’s pale face
\ngone from the window,
\nStephen’s blue legs buried
\nbeneath collapsed walls,
\nand what I remember most
\nabout that first snow<\/p>\n

is the swollen red sound–
\nthe raw black burning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KSC senior Mary Benson, of Chester, NH, has been awarded the Eder Creative Writing Scholarship, an impressive accomplishment. So impressive, in fact, that we thought we’d introduce her through three of her poems, a Newsline first. Let us \u2013 and Mary \u2013 know what you think. If you’d like to know more about her, and … Continue reading Three Poems by Mary Benson, Eder Creative Writing Scholar<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":1548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[366,413],"class_list":["post-1543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-student-standouts","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.keene.edu\/newsline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.keene.edu\/newsline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.keene.edu\/newsline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.keene.edu\/newsline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.keene.edu\/newsline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1543"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.keene.edu\/newsline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3293,"href":"https:\/\/sites.keene.edu\/newsline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions\/3293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.keene.edu\/newsline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.keene.edu\/newsline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.keene.edu\/newsline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.keene.edu\/newsline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}