Page 34 - SOUTHERN VOICES_2020
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Bubbly Bonsai
First Place—Sculpture
Camille Newman
Wire, root beer boxes, beads, flowers, string
Seewen Pride Rock
Third Place—Photography
Whitley Hester
Minimalist Daydream
Ellen Overstreet Painting—acrylic
Summer Day
Raven Day
First Place—Poetry Competition
Scalding hot sun
beamed down in mid-July.
Summer almost over,
I glanced outside our living room window
into our front yard.
On a lawnmower
as red as a newly painted stop sign
sat a 72-year-old man.
Dark skin, standing 6’2,
wearing that old tan straw hat and chewing
the same tobacco pack from the day before,
my granddaddy did our yard work with “Cooling Water” by Lee Williams blasting from his nearly broken radio.
That was nine years ago.
Sometimes
I can look outside and still see him.
Sometimes
My cousin can get the old lawnmower to crank. Most times
I can listen to “Cooling Water” and
see him laughing, telling me how good
tobacco is while we ride around the yard.
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