All of A Summer's Afternoon
by Bettie Sellers (1926- )

If you click on the link and click another link in the top right-hand corner of the Georgia Encyclopedia page, you will be able to hear Ms. Sellers recite this poem. The accent is delicious. Enjoy!

When my mother had turned
her sad, slow heel back into childhood,
She ran away for most of a summer's afternoon.

Neighbors with pitying faces
came to help my father
search the Flint River bottoms
where she had scratched up arrowheads for us
and told such tales that Creeks were lurking
behind every pine and oak for all our summers.

They combed high grasses
skirting the beaver ponds where she once sat
shushing our very breath to quietness
even the shyest beaver could trust.

They found her in the farther pasture
tugging feebly at her print dress
caught in a tangle of barbed wire.

She stood with wide eyes
watching the Indians come
from behind the trees.