Bev Tappan

Month: October 2013

  • NORWICH YEARS:MUDTIME

    MUDTIME IN CRAFTSBURY

    They look at us with calm.

    Inquiring eyes, Vermont

    Draft horse sculptures in barnyards,

    Carved of weatherproof cedar,

    Shoes as big as platters,

    Pressing meshed Budweiser

    Circles into a mash

    Of mud, manure and chaff

    Misted with fertile steam,

    Essence of rural spring,

    While killdeer dart and halt,

    Concealed by tawny stalks,

    Crying “I’m here! I’m here!”

    Beside the talkative creek,

    And apple-breasted thrushes

    Cluster on barren branches,

    Alert for worms that slither

    Through warm lubricious earth.

  • NORWICH YEARS:PINKHAM NOTCH

    A CHANGE OF MOOD

    (In Pinkham Notch)

    Winter nights can be too lonely

    To prolong.  I’m off the bunk

    And on the trail when the first blue glow

    Lanterns the snow, and the last

    Daystar flashlights over the ridge.

    I hear the falls before I reach them:

    Dark volcanic seethings

    Unseen beneath a polar carapace:

    Placid gravemounds of snow

    And brittle veils of frozen spray.

    The lodge windows are fireflies below,

    Heatless and harmless.  Above

    The next switchback a rosy white

    Spectre looms, brightens:

    Alpine snowfields fired by sunrise.

    Now my heels crunch stairsteps

    Down the path.  I relish

    The bounding pawprints of a weasel,

    The cascade’s vigorous mirth,

    The parade of pink clouds up the notch.

  • NORWICH YEARS:JULIA

    JULIA

    She speaks as always without preamble

    As soon as I lift the phone:

    You are watching the MacNeil Lehrer Hour?

    The Polish inflection is strong.

    Yes, of course, I would not miss it.

    I’m very proud of your son

    I answer, but she has already hung up

    And hurried back to observe

    What else our Congressman will say:

    He is rejecting Contra aid.

    That morning we argued about his views

    While correcting voter lists.

    She’d brought the boy to this country

    And put him to work tending cows.

    Small and talkative as a wren,

    She hustled around the office,

    Warning me never to trust the Russians

    Who imprisoned her and myriad

    Others.  She sends clothes and food

    As she helps the homeless here.

    Still she understands that I,

    A nuclear freeze advocate,

    Primarily dread the holocaust

    Star wars would generate.

    She makes me chopped liver sandwiches

    And gives me good advice.

    I bring her cranberry relish.

    We share so little and so much.

  • NORWICH YEARS:JENNY SITTING

    GRANDMA AND JENNY

    We stroll to the park, popping snowberries

    Between our fingers as I did as a child

    Along the shady driveway of my best friend’s house.

    We’re pleased to find ripe Concord grapes

    Hiding under the leaves that vine the walls

    She loves to walk upon.  In the canvas swing,

    Her small bottom fits my hand like a Japanese

    Teacup as I lift and send her soaring.

    She is old enough to pump herself, once

    She gets going.  We rescue a daring toddler

    Who has crawled up the slide as a kitten

    Climbs a trellis, unable to back down.

    Faster than she expects,  Jenny rides the slick

    Steel to a sandy landing.  She tries it again.

    We follow pigeons to the soda stand and

    Pigeons lead us to the beach, speckled at low tide

    With perambulating periwinkles. They

    Singlefoot among the Irish moss and sea

    Lettuce.  Clusters of mussels congregate

    Like Portuguese families.  Seven geese

    Drift by in convoy, nattering about the

    Scarcity of minnows.  Jenny splashes ashore

    To dump her bucket onto a sand patty.

    The day is opalescent and fragile as fine

    Crystal, or the beauties she blows

    And catches on her soapbubble ring.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS:OCTOBER SONNET

    OCTOBER SONNET

    Here in my 87th fall, the tree

    That I admire most of all is that

    Tall maple which is verdant still

    But flaming at the top.   its crowning

    Glory gives a last exultant shout,

    A last exuberant glowing out

    Before its embers lose their fire:

    That is the tree I most admire.  But

    Since I cannot be a tree or emulate

    Its majesty, my only role must be

    To celebrate and drink a toast to constancy.

    So here’s to beauty, here’s to reaching out

    While standing still, here’s to blooming

    In one’s place, here’s to saying yes to fate.

    (October, 2013)

  • REUTEMANN ROAD: PAW PRINTS

    PAW PRINTS

    My hand recalls the hard curve

    Of his skull and the pull of the wire brush

    Through his coarse tail.  Big Mick

    Was a rock hound who nosed up

    Smooth stones to cradle in his jaws.

     

    He swam endless laps in the pond

    Towing a small boy.  He barked

    Into the water to scare the fish.

    His wolf eyes beamed us down the drive.

    He danced his welcome up the steps.

     

    Vacuum cleaners were fair game.

    New ice at the edge of the outlet

    Shattered under his paws.  Snow frosted

    His muzzle.  His tracks in the woods, enlarged

    Like Big Foot’s, soon will be melted.

    (Reutemann Road poems 1960-1972)

  • REUTEMANN ROAD: GIVING THANKS

    GIVING THANKS

    Meandering out of the village the car

    Shudders and stops short

    To let a bronze native turkey

    Hurtle across the tar-top

    Almost under the wheels, desperate,

    Floundering into the furze.

    The sacrificial victim flees

    The carnage.  One wants to cheer

    As when Canadian geese last week

    Gleaned in Farmer Burdick’s

    Cornfield, undisturbed by chattering

    Guns or barking curs.

    (Reutemann Road poems 1960-1972)

  • REUTEMANN ROAD: EVANESCENCE

    EVANESCENCE

    Tonight we see two moons:

    One has fallen in the pond,

    A fire opal clasped in prongs,

    Caged in black branches.

    The other moon is ringed in flames.

    Knowing this moment cannot last,

    We hurry to get a camera.

    On our return, pale ripples

    Stir the darkening water

    And smoking ashes shimmer in the sky.

    (Reutemann Road poems 1960-1972)

  • REUTEMANN ROAD: ROLE MODELS

    ROLE MODELS

    Mourning doves are Quaker ladies

    Sedate, subdued and graceful,

    Habited in buff and gray with sable

    Accents and tapering tails.

    Muslim women congregating

    At the well, they softly wait

    Until among the seeds a space

    For feeding makes itself available.

    Nodding their heads they circulate

    With delicate steps, amiable

    Party guests, unruffled, contained,

    For simple favors grateful.

  • REUTEMANN ROAD: ALL HALLOWS’ DAY

    ALL HALLOWS DAY

    Prizefighters, the trees, muscular and bare-

    Chested, have shrugged off florescent

    Dressing gowns, ready to go

    Six rounds with winter, that old

    Title holder.  It’s the first of November.

    We are out to resurrect the leaves,

    Give them a new start on life

    In compost piles where they will steam,

    Reduce themselves to a stew chewed by hearty

    Worms into a meal fit for the delicate

    White fingers of April radishes.

    Harvesting leaves is not like tugging out

    Rocks or cutting clusters of grapes.

    With wide-spread arms we hug

    The feathery mounds, we press them down

    Into the cart.  My husband tramples them underfoot

    Like hay in the barn loft, he recalls,

    Dust floating up and people sneezing.

    Chickadees complain.  Gray squirrels

    Brandish their tails.  A jay keeps his distance.

    Under the clouds a focal flock of geese

    Shift lanes, honking for the right-of-way,

    Ignored by a pair of hang-gliding hawks.

    Radical tamarack candles flame

     Among conservative pines and cedars,

    Electing to cast all their needles off

    In one annual fling rather

    Than pluck them out a few at a time.

    At noontime we pause.  I cut pink

    And maroon chrysanthemums for the table.

    Bumblebees fasten themselves like pins

    On the yellow stamen.  I flick them off.

    But that evening on the kitchen counter

    A microscopic neon emerald bee-like

    Creature glints on a pastel petal.

    (Reutemann Road Poems, 1960-1972)

  • REUTEMANN ROAD: BREAKING OFF

    BREAKING OFF

    The old bass grins with a mended lip,

    A zippered gash where a hook was ripped

    Across the cartilage and out,

    Taking a corner of the mouth.

    She chose to spew the succulent bait

    Rather than swim on a leash and wait

    For the dull hammer thud on the head,

    The knife edge sawing through the neck.

    The old wolf lopes with a missing paw

    On the stubborn bone she chose to gnaw

    In a long cacophony of pain

    And not like a docile dog remain

    In the tender clasp of talons of steel,

    Starving by inches on rancid meat,

    Awaiting the bullet’s swift reprieve.

    The best revenge is living free.

    (Reutemann Road Poems 1960-1972)

  • REUTEMANN ROAD: THE CATCH

    THE CATCH

    Two hooks in her cheek, one in her lip,

    The bass lay passive on the gravel bank

    As though my fingers twisting barbs out of cartilage

    Were veterinarian healing probes.

    Back in the water, leashed on a stringer,

    She rested in rusty bottom reeds,

    Sometimes backpaddling the length of her tether

    With small delicate strokes of her fins.

    She’d made her protest demonstration when the pain

    First snagged her face, that treacherous

    Red lure.  She arched my rod, launching

    Herself like a rocket out of control.

    I sharpened the blade for a fast scalpel cut

    At the base of the head.  She lay still

    As a patient on an operating table.  Scales scattered.

    I saw her sacks of roe were full.

    My father taught me how to fish, threading

    The worms as casually as bacon rind

    Onto the hooks, smoothing down the fins,

    Enclosing the perch in his freckled hand.

    (Reutemann Road Poems, 1960-1972)