REMEMBRANCE TOTEM
Blood Brother, listen! hear our lonely steps…
Margaret Roxby was an award-winning poet published internationally in poetry magazines and anthologies, in addition to her two chapbooks, Glass Rain, Golden Rain and Medley. She was a fellow with the World Poetry Society International, local chapter board member of the National League of American Pen Women, and active in the California Federation of Chapparal Poets. She was included in the World Who’s Who of Women, Yearbook of Modern Poetry (1971), and International Who’s Who in Poetry (1971-1973). Margaret was often requested to speak on poetry and to present book reviews to local organizations. Her favorite quote was, “God, you have been good to me. You gave me a love of poetry.”
Margaret also dabbled in prose publishing articles in the Sunday supplement for the Long Beach Independent-Press Telegram newspaper, Los Fierros, a publication of the Los Cerritos Docents. She had a long running column for LBCC General Adult Division newsletter. She authored several more articles, short stories and a science fiction novel.
Margaret was a native of West Virginia where she worked through the 1930’s depression as a typist/clerk typing 200+ wpm. After marriage and the start of WW2, she moved with her husband to Long Beach, California where she worked several years as a secretary. Margaret served several years as a Camp Fire Girls leader and was elected the area’s PTA representative to the state-wide convention. When her son was ready for pre-school, she enrolled in LB City College studying psychology and later creative writing with Alice Wright, founder of a popular, long-running writers’ conference hosted in Long Beach.
Blood Brother, listen! hear our lonely steps…
…the star that took to flight…. The poet says good-by to loved one.
…to look beyond the dark…
…The moon, spilling silver lies down chiffon skies….
Reprieved from death and the bullet’s cruel stab, you came to us from the hills–shaggy, loyal, and strong
Weep, willow, kai! The sun of sorrow is crossing the sky
Weep, willow, kai! The morning of sorrow lays dew on the eye.
…While our eyes searched for the vanished lake….
The summer lives, where have they fled? Beneath what distant suns and star-held moons…
Firefly summer vanishes into autumn smoke…
How the rope turns matters much….if we don’t trip or fall…