Sherry Chandler (bluegrasspoet)

Sherry Chandler Sherry Chandler

Hmmmm - I was not always gently buzzing. I think I need to rethink sentence structure.

Sherry Chandler

I remember Uncle's beehives, white boxes placed here & there, alien as Stevens' jar, on farmland I was free to roam, always gently buzzing

Sherry Chandler

The W. kids, who lived in my uncle's tenant house, walked the lane. They'd run ahead, throw rocks at the bee tree. I was not afraid of bees.

Sherry Chandler

Sometimes there were other children but mostly I walked the lane alone from bus to house, ears alert for the monster sneaking up behind me.

Sherry Chandler

I remember the gravel lane, the first long sloping hill and where it leveled out, a hollow tree in the fence row buzzing with honeybees.

Sherry Chandler

I remember the gravel lane from school bus to our house sloped down toward the creek; a narrow lane closely lined with trees.

Sherry Chandler

I remember walking the half mile of gravel road from the school bus stop, the buck bushes that grew on the bank beside Papaw's barn.

Sherry Chandler

I remember wading the ankle-deep branch, rocks would tip under my feet and crawdaddies would backpedal, leaving a murky trail of silt.

Sherry Chandler

I remember the branch, how the rocks clanked when uncle drove the wagon across the ford in droughty August, how the mud cracked and curled.

Sherry Chandler

I remember Buck Elk Creek, called the branch. I waded its summer-stagnant water, left a trail of silt. I'd not have mixed bourbon with it.

Sherry Chandler

The resident raccoon licks at the ice in a water bowl,the forsythia is a stand of gray sticks, winter will not give way to spring.

Sherry Chandler

A cold gray April 1, daffodils thrust up spears but show no bloom. In an ash by the road, a buzzard perches, watching.

Sherry Chandler

Black coffee in a white porcelain cup, red coils of the space heater reflected in the white, outside late March snow.

Sherry Chandler

A ghost-moon in a blue-gray sky, a pond mirror still except for wakes kicked up by half a dozen ducks, a blanketed horse lying in the sun.

Sherry Chandler

Wind gusts up the street between the medical buildings, blows a pedestrian's hat into the gutter. Life imitates cartoons.

Sherry Chandler

A sudden clap of thunder, ominous as T-Rex on the prowl, and then a rush of wind, fast and needle-toothed as a velociraptor.

Sherry Chandler

The old moon hangs in the tree tops just before dawn, as worn down as Mom's carbon-steel paring knife, the one her hand always found first.

Sherry Chandler

Here comes the sun but it's just a tease. By Monday we'll be back to gloom & freeze. But birds say snow don't mean a thing. It's spring.

Sherry Chandler

Who has the better swagger, Wayne or Mitchum? I'll wager Wayne's is artifice, created, Mitchum's artless inate grace.

Sherry Chandler

The sun is out and suddenly the robin patrol has hit the yard, leaving no fallen leaf unturned.