LAMENT
Where and when did it begin,
This call to me of the wild?
Was it the chatter of tanagers
Flitting in Amesbury pines
Waking a six-year-old child,
Or was it the dip and dip
Of my parents’ canoe paddles
In the Powow River north
Of camp on Tuxbury Pond,
Or when I looked up at trees
And hooked my hand on the smooth
Bark of birch and aspen
As I struggled up Mt. Chocorua?
Later I came to mourn
The hurricane’s blast, the pines
Strewn like tangled match sticks,
The scarlet tanagers gone.
Today as an octogenarian
It drives me wild to see
Our maples migrating to Canada,
Our Great Bay rank with algy.
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