Cricket
Music
Dr.
Peggy Smith Duke
Stillness
rills
the cricket voices
hidden
in the katydid choruses
drowned now
by hurricane rain.
A single
silver woodwind trill
begins,
a somber solo still
and tentative,
Mahler work
with sparse
and vibrant strings
of cricket violins
filling
the autumn air
with music breath.
Zucchini
Dr.
Peggy Smith Duke
Planted
dreams of
squash, bright green
spears of beans and corn
fill the early days.
Then
zucchini grow
and grow
filling baskets
twice again.
Bread,
casseroles
not enough
to defeat them.
Pickles, a fresh
French soup
with cheese
called Laughing Cow.
Twice again
the kitchen disappears
in seas of green
gourded bounty--
summer
manna.
***
DR.
PEGGY SMITH DUKE is a poet and writer living in rural Middle
Tennessee, with her husband, four dogs, one cat, and a disagreeable
horse. During racing season, she serves as crew chief for her
husband’s competitive sportsman drag racing. She worked in
aircraft and appliance manufacturing for 20 years and has published
in newspapers, professional journals, and magazines for 30 years.
Her poetry has been published in The Trunk (2003, 2004)
and John Reid’s Traveling: An Anthology of Award-Winning
Poetry (2005). Her poem, "Shirt Factory," won Most
Highly Commended recognition in the Tom Howard Poetry Contest,
and she is three times a poetry winner in the Middle Tennessee
State University Writer’s Loft Fiction and Poetry Competition.
She holds a BS in Journalism and an MA in Industrial Psychology
from Middle Tennessee State University, and an EdD from Vanderbilt
University. In 2004 she completed a writing certificate with a
focus in poetry.
©
Dr. Peggy Smith Duke