Helen Blackshear served as Alabama poet laureate for almost a decade, her nimble voice lacing scraps of history together with the threads of lost sunsets. In "Heritage", she encourages us to embrace the living history in our midst- "To listening ears old things have tales to tell."
In "The Watchers", she mourns the exodus of little eyes from the world as she knew it. A darker poem, to be sure, but well-lit.
THE WATCHERS
Are we becoming like the dinosaurs,
Those of us who fell in love with words,
Subject to uncomprehending stares
From vacant eyes of video-conscious herds?
What magic will these modern children know
Who never rode the wind with Dorothy
Or sailed the pirate seas in Westward Ho,
Who greet the Brothers Grimm with apathy?
They sit within their darkened rooms and glue
Their eyes upon a flickering TV screen.
Heedless of sun and sky they laugh on cue,
Guided by prompting from the laugh machine.
For them there is no "Open Sesame!"
The world of wonders has no golden key.
