PALMETTO POEM, Meyers: back from the woods inside me

Contributing editor’s note:  Beloved Lowcountry poet Susan Laughter Meyers passed away suddenly on June 25. Widely published, she was the author of two poetry collections Keep and Give Away and My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass, and a chapbook.  She won numerous literary awards and was active in both the North and South Carolina Poetry Societies. Susan went about her life and her art the same way: with wisdom, intelligence, integrity, kindness — and a gentle and generous spirit. Over the years, she taught and inspired many hundreds of poets. Not only did she make us better poets; she made us better human beings.

— Contributing editor Marjory Wentworth, Poet Laureate of South Carolina

By Susan Laughter Meyers

back from the woods inside me
chickadee silence

nothing I can say to myself so full
the not saying

when I opened the nesting box
what looked slight

plain yet right filled the moment
spilling over into what once was

and what might be
their warm bodies feathered out

their eyes on me quick
with fright the luck of finding two

small birds one turned east
and the other west as if placed

that way to remind me where
I’d come from where I was going

Susan Laughter Meyers of Givhans is the author of two full poetry collections: My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass, winner of the Cider Press Review Editors’ Prize; and Keep and Give Away (University of South Carolina Press), winner of the S.C. Poetry Book Prize. Today’s poem was first published in 2013 in My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass. Learn more at her Web site.

Palmetto Poem is a monthly series that started in June. Each month, S.C. Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth shares a poem by a South Carolina writer.

• Have a general comment?  Send to:  editor@charlestoncurrents.com.