Tinney Chapel Today

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Angela Wylie Wins Another Poetry Prize

Tinney Chapel Lay Speaker, Song Leader and Sunday School Teacher, Angela Wylie, has done it again.

Once again, Angela has won top prize in the adult category of the third annual Northeast Texas Poetry Contest.

Today, Angela read her winning composition, Summer Breeze, during presentation ceremonies in Whatley Foyer at Northeast Texas Community College.

Summer Breeze

Deep shadows slant dark across rust-colored needles,
softening footfalls and holding silent the sound
excluding all but the call of birds or the
incessant buzz of persistent cicada
that pierces through the gentle breeze.

A summer breeze that blows through the forests
and fields of deep East Texas, curling and swirling
around the scaly-barked pine and sighing soft
music through the slender green needles
before moving onward to other places.

Places where knurled oak, elm, and hickory
thrust up through the deep loam and hold
tenacious and hard in the rich clay, sinking down roots
and lifting bark and rustling leaves to the
questing favor of the balmy soft breeze.

Intimately aware that when the season turns
the breeze will not be warm, but cold,
and the leaves will be tossed down
crumbled upon the ground, decayed, turned,
reborn to feed new seedlings in the circle of life.

The breeze moves through weeds and grass
that sway with the motion of waves, eddying and fragrant
with bloom and pod, whisking away seeds
and blowing errantly through the land
welcomed in a hot, humid summer world.

The breeze blows through fence and wire,
ineffectual barriers marking property,
Blowing past paved roadways, concrete or black-top
heated by the sun and shimmering with shallow
mirages of false water from a fathomless blue sky.

Breezes from lush lakes meet and swirl
playfully creating ripples in deep still water where
bass and crappie swim in lazy silver shimmers
down deep where the water is dark and cool
moving in the slow dance of the season.

Summer breezes give hope of rain
from the towering white thunderheads,
rising as tall as mountains in the pristine blue sky.
Swollen with water vapor they drift over the thirsty world
their shadows teasing the parched and longing earth.

The breeze filters though sickle-shorn fields
where bales of hay are rolled up tight
Bundles of precious golden security against
the coming cold and the harsh grey skies of winter
But not now. Not this moment.

Now is the time for sun and heat,
A time of ripening and drying,
A time for standing still and letting the
breeze gently blow away sweat and fatigue
giving sweet relief for a grateful moment.

This is East Texas summer, diverse and potent
with potential and rich in wealth of soil and sky.
From tall swaying pine and mighty spreading oak
surrounding far-reaching meadows of Coastal Bermuda hay
to black-land fields of white cotton and green soy.

Contented cattle graze here and timber is cut.
Crops are harvested and towns abound.
Children are educated and life is lived
surrounded by winding county roads that meander
through forested hills and sporadic untamed wilderness.

Blow, Breeze, through this our world,
Caress the weary worker and the joyful child.
Blow through main streets and past busy shops.
Blow across wildflower-speckled fields and through tall trees.
Blow, Summer Breeze, and remember me.

Copyright: Angela Wylie, August 15, 2010