Bev Tappan

Month: January 2015

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: THE WEIGHT OF WINTER

    THE WEIGHT OF WINTER

    The spruce is still bowed down by snow

    Below my north-facing window.  Its limbs

    Droop sadly, unable to bear the load

    Of yesterday’s twenty-four hour storm.

    Yet across the road the pines have risen

    Branch by branch, shaking off their burdens

    As sun and breeze set them free until

    They stand tall again, undiminished,

    Proud to have weathered another of winter’s

    Relentless assaults, green and regal.

    I think how much difference a little sunlight,

    A little warmth, can make in a life.

  • TAMWORTH POEMS: THREE HIKERS AND A DOG

    THREE HIKERS AND A DOG

    A flash of orange bounds across our snowshoes.

    Checker, the black and white Australian shepherd,

    Wearing his lustrous “Hunters, don’t shoot me!” coat,

    Checks up on us as we crunch along White Lake’s shore.

    We watch him tree a saucy squirrel not at all

    Fazed by his leaps and sharp impatient barks.

    Our eyes are drawn to jagged cavities drilled

    In the trunks of pines by woodpeckers after bugs.

    We hear a raven’s hoarse foreboding croak

    And note the jumbled prints of skittering voles.

    Here where the track accesses the shore we take

    A shortcut over the lake.  Checker says “Hey!”

    To an angler who’s driven his truck and fish shack

    Onto the ice but reports, “No dice!” for a catch.

    Halfway around we reach the beeches.  Our poles

    Break free of entangling brush whose name we can’t

    Recall.  We learn the dog has a checkered past:

    Rejected by his siblings, he was the outcast,

    The runt about to be dispatched, but love

    Has prevailed.  He’s now a lively obedient rover.

    Nearing our cars we are brought to a halt.  A mountain

    Bike with snow tires stops our forward momentum.

    We understand Checker’s anxious barks.  We feel

    These forest paths were meant to be trodden by feet.

    Out of the west a wall of darkness dispatches

    The sun and a wintry wind assaults our backs.

    We are just in time to retreat to Rosie’s for lunch,

    Safe from the blast of a fast moving polar vortex.

    Checker curls up for a nap in the back of the van.

    It’s time for next week’s outing to be planned.

  • REUTEMANN ROAD POEMS: OUR JON

    OUR JON

    Our first born son was tolerant of

    His sister, born just fifteen months

    His junior, but he teased his younger

    Brother, who followed two years later.

    And yet, he helped Dan land his first

    Big bass, jaws locked on the lure

    Of a toy fishing rod, and he took

    The punishment for an annoying noise

    That Dan, not he, had made.  Jon set

    A high standard for high school grades

    And he got handy with Tandy in time to manage

    Data banks before computer classes were taught.

    Jon’s first puppy love was Sprite, his beagle,

    And later he loved three winsome collies

    And Becky, their owner, as well as his tall

    Dark-haired daughter, who shares his love

    Of all things and customs Japanese:

    He critiques animes, practices Shin Buddha

    Meditation, savors sakes, sleeps well

    On futons, kneels gracefully at tea tables

    And wields his chopsticks with skillful ease.

  • TAMWORTH POEMS: AS PLAIN AS BLACK AND WHITE

    AS PLAIN AS BLACK AND WHITE

    Except when the next polar vortex

    Launches its ice shafts from the Arctic

    The winters in northern Maine ain’t

    What they used to be.  Our partially frozen

    Lakes no longer hold up our trucks

    And fishing shacks.  Our skis skid

    On glazed and glistening worn-down snow.

    On this first day of the new year

    The Androscoggin still flows free

    From Gorham east to Rumford, where

    Another dam delays it long enough

    For icy platelets to collect and merge

    Into almost-circles of white on black,

    An abstract Escher-like design or pattern

    That seems to hold some urgent message

    For those with eyes wide open to see.