There is the sensation of a man's mid-section and the chain leading up to the pocket in his vest and his gold watch pressed against my cheek. There is the scent of summer and Sycamore trees that run down a lane that ends near the banks of the James River. There is the feeling of crossing Huntington Street and being lowered down to the edge of some wooden stairs that pass over a dune littered with Dixie Cups and shells. There is the pressure of a spoon in my hand as I dig the red clay out of the cliffs that stand in back of the beach. I will struggle all morning to create torsos, arms, legs, and heads, and smiling faces with periwinkles stuck in them for eyes. Mother and Father, Grandfather and Grandmother, I will name them as my grandfather names the ships that pass by on their way to Hampton Roads: "The Yorktown," "The Hornet," and "The Enterprise."
After a long hiatus working as a journalist, Ann Meredith Cale is writing poetry again. In the 1980s her poems appeared in US1: An Anthology: Contemporary Writing from New Jersey, the U.S. 1# Worksheet, and the Berkeley Poet's Co-op Worksheets. In 1980, she received a grant from the New Jersey Council of the Arts for a poetry manuscript.
