Published in Time of Singing, Volume 41, Number 1, Spring 2014
Editor Lora H. Zill

For God's Eyes Alone
Roger Morigi was a master stone carver, Washington National Cathedral, 1956-1978

Scaling a scaffold
let down like a Jacob
ladder leaning against
heaven's gate,
an artisan calls out to Morigi
who had spent days
chiseling leaves
in an all but hidden part
of a sacred tableau
as spirited as children
playing hide and seek:

Why is it taking you so long?
The leaves are beautiful.
But who will ever see them?
 

                                                           TIME OF SINGING
                                                      A Magazine of Christian Poetry
                                                                    Spring 2013
                                                                Editor: Lora H. Zill

       
                         APRIL AWARENESS
               
                         April had set in
                         without a nod from me.
                         I had been too busy to notice
                         ranks of pink and green
                         springing up outside my door
                         saluting the rise of sap.
                       
                         Then one unspectacular day
                         the brassy Captain
                         of the seasons lingered
                         just beyond my lawn and made
                         glowing gestures of command.

                         In that yellow-white moment
                         I joined a light regiment of rain
                         as it marched up the walk
                         with the quickening step
                         of Spring on parade.
                                         
                                            --Betty Spence
                                               April 2013

                         

Poems in Summer 2012 Avocet, a Journal of Nature Poems

Ivy Wild

 

Grandmother's screened-in-porch was ivy-bound.

The way she pinned green leaves to the screen

you would have thought them  tresses of the sun.

She had such heart spun ways of doing things--

with silver ropes of hair let down for love

she used hairpins to pin the glory up.

                                                               --BS

 

                           Nothing Gold Can Stay

 

                           Every day now

                           the journey-bound hickory--

                            in flower before leafing out--

                            opens another, another,

                            and still another

                            gold-tasseled package.

                             Playing pendulum

                             with catkins as tufted

                             as a young man's chin,

                             the gifted tree

                             going green in its gold

                             leaves me to write

                                            thank-you notes.

                                                   --BS

 

Nesting Laughing Gull

 

In clump

of shoreline grass

a speckled green egg

swings gently

to the lub-a-dub sounds

of laughter on the wing.

                              --BS

Plotting the Resurrection

PLOTTING THE RESURRECTION

Old, too long Brooks raincoat,

little, round wool hat, galoshes...

as years went by there was something 

comical, yet touching about Katharine's 

gray appearance on this one day

in the fall she got herself up for laying out

the spring bulb garden.

With diagram and clipboard in hand 

she waddled to the director's chair­-

a folded canvas thing placed for her 

at the edge of the plot where she sat

hour after hour, in wind and weather

as Henry produced dozens of brown bags 

full of new bulbs and a basketful

of old ones ready for the intricate interment.

Small, hunched over figure absorbed 

in the implausible notion

there would, indeed, be another springtime 

with its pinks and greens and yellows, 

oblivious to the end of her own days,

she knew perfectly well was near at hand...

there she sat with her detailed chart 

beneath dying October skies 

plotting the resurrection. 

Betty Spence

Mobile, Alabama

* Poem found in E.B. White's introduction  to his wife's book, 

Onward and Upward in the Garden.

Ivy Wild

Ivy Wild

Grandmother's screened-in-porch  was ivy-bound.

The way she pinned green leaves to the screen

you would have thought them tresses of the sun.

She had such heart spun ways of doing things­-

with silver ropes of hair let down for love

she used hairpins to pin the glory up.

                                                   NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY

                                                    Every day now

                                                    the journey-bound  hickory-­ 

                                                    in flower before leafing out­- 

                                                    opens another, another,

                                                    and still another

                                                    gold-tasseled  package.

                                                    Playing pendulum 

                                                    with catkins as tufted

                                                    as a young man 's chin, 

                                                    the gifted tree

                                                    going green in its gold 

                                                    leaves me to write

                                                           thank-you  notes.

Nesting Laughing Gull

In clump

of shoreline grass

a speckled green egg 

swings gently

to the lub-a-dub sounds 

of laughter on the wing.

           *Poems in Avocet by Betty Spence

                                                             

Seeding the Mstery

Time of Singing

A Magazine Of Christian Poetry

Volume 37  Number 3

Winter 2010/2011

SEEDING THE MYSTERY
(The tomato is celebrated in legends of romance as an apple of love.)

The winter of your dying past,
it's time to seed the tomatoes.
As memory would have it,
I find you in the potting shed.
I watch through the window
as you make small drain holes
in the bottom of Styrofoam cups
and pour in a measure of potting soil
every bit as promising as desire.

The fierce grip that once operated 
bulldozers with tires as tall as cars
now let go,
you moisten the tip of a work-strutted
finger, touch it to your tongue
and pick straight up a small brownish-red seed
as dry and springy as a speck of dust
and drop in a womb-like cup
an embryo embedded
with a replica of love apples
heavy with summer-sweet flesh.

                                   Betty Spence
                                   Mobile, Alabama

Get to know Betty Spence, award-winning Semmes poet

Published: Tuesday, April 24, 2012, 1:15 PM

 By Press-Register Correspondent 

Betty Spence

MOBILE, Alabama — Betty Spence, 78, encourages everyone, particularly senior citizens, to follow their dreams and to never give up. If the dream is to write, then create poetry or stories or essays. The reward is in doing what the heart desires, she says; the awards, if and when they come, are icing on the cake.

For Spence, who's been writing most of her life, the awards are finally coming.

Though she's made a career in newspaper work and producing devotions for various religious organizations, it is poetry that Spence loves and the genre in which she's recently begun receiving recognition.

A former columnist and correspondent for the Press-Register and a devotional writer for Assembly of God and Church of God publications, Spence got "turned on to poetry" when, at age 39, she attended the University of South Alabama. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a concentration in creative writing.

She's had moderate success with her poetry over the years, but 2011 was her year to shine in that area. She had her works published in several print and online journals. In October, she attended the Alabama State Poetry Association Conference at the University of Montevallo, where she received the following awards for her poetry: first place in the Alabama State Poetry Society Fall contest with her entry "These are Mine"; second place in the Mississippi Poetry Society-sponsored Poet Laureate category with "Needle Delights"; and an honorable mention in the ASPS contest for "The Paper Folder."

Spence continues writing devotionals for adults (regularly published in "God's Word for Today," "Penned from the Heart" and "Life Related Learnings" and for teens ("Take Five Plus").

Get to Know Betty Spence
Birthplace: Mobile
Hometown: Crawford community near Semmes
Family: Son, Chuck
Profession: Wrote for newspaper 12 years and had a column entitled "In the Neighborhood" for eight of those; writes devotionals for adults and teens; and recently won awards for her poetry

She belongs to several writers' organizations, including Alabama Writers' Conclave, the Pensters, Alabama State Poetry Society, Florida Poetry Society and the Huntsville Literary Society.

In the past year, she also co-founded, with Geri Anderson, the Greenleaf Writers' Group, which meets the third Saturday of each month at 10 a.m. at Semmes Public Library, 9150 Moffett Road.

-----

This story was written by Jo Anne McKnight, Press-Register Correspondent.