Zehner, White take top two spots in GAC writing contest

In a highly-competitive contest that featured multiple quality entries, Damaris Zehner and Sue White took the top two spots in the inaugural Greencastle Arts Council creative writing contest.

Zehner’s poem “This Fallen World” was awarded first place, while White’s “How It Is” was a close second.

In fact, the top four entries were separated by just one point each.

Announced late last year, the GAC creative writing contest welcomed submission from adults throughout the county. The submissions were judged by Jared Jernagan, editor of the Banner Graphic; author and educator Beth Benedix, founder and director of The Castle; poet Abby Chew of Claremont, Calif., a graduate of South Putnam High School and member of DePauw University class of 2002; Matt McClelland, director of the Putnam County Public Library; and writer Donovan Wheeler, senior English teacher at Greencastle High School and content contributor to Indiana on Tap and National Road Magazine.

GAC invited submissions of a short story, scene from a play, poem or song, exceeding 1,000 words, with the top prize being published in the Banner Graphic. Given the closenss of the competition, both are published.

“This (poem) describes an experience I had when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia,” Zehner said of “This Fallen World.”

“I composed this almost completely in my head as I drove 10-plus hours back from Virginia after going there to collect the necessary documents for whatever happened next to my mom,” White said. “I had to stop at a rest area to write it all down so I didn’t lose any of it. It was weird driving that far and not even getting to see Mom.”

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This Fallen World

By DEMARIS ZEHNER

I walked through the West African town every day,
Rust-red dirt beneath my feet, green leaves crowding overhead.
Sounds of chickens and of mortars pounding
Marked the houses hiding in the trees along the road.

One day, at my feet, against the rust-red dirt, I saw
A streak of green – grass-green, glittering emerald.
I bent to look: a tiny mamba, just hatched, innocent
As Adam on his first day in paradise, and poison.

Entranced by its brightness, I crouched
In the rust-red dirt and speckled shade.
I looked at it; it looked back at me, unmoved.

“Da SNAKE!” a voice screeched from the end of the road.
How could she even see the tiny creature?
“You mu’ kill it!”

I stood up and considered the hatchling at my feet.
Beyond its beauty I could hear
Barefoot children playing in the yards
Of mothers too familiar with death.

I picked up a stone, dropped it on the snake’s head,
And stepped down, hard.

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How It Is

By SUE WHITE

How is it
that in a room I’ve never lived in
I am assaulted by memories so vivid that I almost hear my father whistling down the hall?
Hear him calling my name?
Yet it’s not quite two years since I sat in a hospital room, whispered my love to him, and
promised to take care of you as he took his last breath on earth.

How is it
that in a room with a color palette I’d never select
I find so much comfort?
I fool myself that any minute you too will come in with your tea and sit down and complete the
puzzle started three weeks ago that is waiting by the green chair.
Yet you are in a medical facility…alone.

How is it
that I am forbidden to go into that room, and hold your hand and whisper I love you,
and keep my promise?

How is it
that I will ever be able to deconstruct this room,
to take that first picture off a wall,
and lose a place that revives memories I didn’t know I had?
Memories of your lives…

What are memories?
If they are really only electrical impulses in my brain,
how is it
that I feel them in my chest, my eyes, even my lips
as I purse them together so tightly they can’t even be seen
in a useless attempt to keep the glorious memories from leaking out
and trickling down my face?

Immobilized by the enormity of it all I decide to straighten up a room,
that has very little out of place except the absent two designers.
I am startled to find something grossly untidy.
A green mug contains a coalesced, obsidian, bacterial slime of evaporated tea
resting on a twice folded paper towel protecting the coaster sitting underneath it.
You had placed it there, beside the piles of bills and junk mail,
the same morning you started that puzzle. Before you fell…

How is it
that a fall can change so much?
It was the beginning ember of weeks of health care wild fires and phone calls.
“Your mother has fallen and they took her to the hospital!
Do you know how she is doing?” “Do you know where she is?”
No! NO! I don’t know…how can I not know?
The phone calls kept coming,
detailing trench warfare advances on your health.
“Your mother has fallen again.”
“Your mother has AFIB… has a dangerous blood pressure spike…has been moved to avoid
getting COVID… moved back again because she tested positive for the virus…”
Moving, moving,
and several times they forget to tell me
and I call your room and get no answer and am scared.

How is it
that a year can change so much?
It’s incomprehensible to me that you are going through this alone,
that I don’t even always know where you are and can’t be with you
to hold your hand and whisper I love you as you go through this
unrelenting health journey.
I throw out the tea slime, and some junk mail, and sort bills.
The phone rings
and my stomach drops.

How is it
that my family has been granted a reprieve? That you are doing…well!?
You might,
possibly might,
eventually might...get to come back to this room I’m standing in,
sit in the green chair and finish that puzzle.
And I might be able to see you again, in life...
I could sit beside you, hold your hand and tell you in person that I love you.

How is it
that these last few hours in this sanctuary of memories will change me?
What questions will I be able to ask you now?
What old memories will we share, what new ones will we be able to make?
I ponder this as I double fold a new paper towel and put it on the coaster to wait for the next
cup of tea. I’m thankful I didn’t disturb anything but dirty cups, junk mail and bills.

I turn to leave, closing and locking the door,
grateful I can leave it just
how it is.

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