Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. His latest collection is No Brother, This Storm (Mercer University Press, 2018). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.
~*~
Rolled Over into Waves
—White River, 1915
It had to be something the farmer did,
they thought, when all the catfish
disappeared and the water
on the river went choppy with crests
every evening about sundown.
But then there were the bellows
like a hurt mule when nobody
for miles could have bought
or fed an animal like that, and to what end
up against the water like they were.
Wind came and never left that summer,
and all the kids started singing songs
about a water elephant
rolling around under the river’s surface
big as two tractors and hungry
as dirt with no seed, thirsty as August
without a drop of rain.
Folks still fished,
though faith was a piss-poor bait
and an even sorrier supper.
~*~
Traiteuse
Always a fever,
the wild kicking of legs
and tears to tend.
Her soft prayers
fill the room to overflowing.
No gift required to buy her willow bark,
fig sap,
le sureau to calm all chills,
she only needs an invitation, a dark room
and faith.
Copper pots of water,
rosary beads, elderberry tea—
it all gives way to her song,
the hope that all things
pass except the caring,
and all trials are doorways
to grace.
~*~
Marsh Horses
On the way to drop bags of oyster shells
into the water near Montegut
to seed a new barrier
against the water’s need, you’ll see
small peninsulas held together
by marsh grass rising
out of the lake, ghosts
of a full coastline reaching
out into the open pass.
Here and there, herds
of marsh horses toe
along the waterline,
heads down, nosing new grass
growing at the land’s edges.
They’ve learned to swim
from mass to mass for fresh growth,
step gingerly on soft ground
to stay upright.
Nothing about these animals
belongs on so little land,
but here they’ll be, alive.
~*~
