Hannah Fender, one of Beth’s granddaughters, has taken up the mantle and is composing her own poetry.
Here is a selection of three of her poems.
Sleep
Sleep –
A pretence
To feel the beat
Of your heart.
To watch as
You pick your food
And the way in which
Your hands move.
To hear how closely
We breathe in time
With sides pressed
And your hair
Mixed with mine.
O, Moon
O, Moon in the sky O, beacon!
So high above my shrinking
form you hang. Forlorn,
almost. You
are the
single
shape of night;
white, round, and
unlike the stars you
are not a pin against the blue.
Crone
The woman sits alone on sands
At the edge of a big blue sea.
She is older than the boats,
Older than the mermaids,
Older than the waves,
Themselves now frail
Crawling painfully slowly
Up
And
Down
The empty silver shoreline
Their white bearded mouths
Latching onto loose pebbles and
Inviting them back to the water.
And the Sun is old.
He is already
Stooping
Behind the horizon.
She sits in silence,
Her grey hair
Attacking the breeze
And her eyes;
Large
Green
Round
Are empty.
Yet her face is wrinkled
With a thousand smiles
And it seems as though
She has reached an age
Beyond time.