Bev Tappan

Poems

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: SNOW DAY

    SNOW DAY

    We welcome snow:

    Flakes falling slow,

    Concealing our tracks,

    Covering our backs.

    No place to go,

    No rows to hoe,

    The world’s gone white.

    We’re sitting tight.

    We hope it snows

    All day, all night.

    (January 2, 2014)

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: EPIPHANY

    EPIPHANY

    Veiled by thickly falling snow,

    Winter robins come and go.

    From my window I can see

    Them flocking in the tall pear tree.

    Startled by the passing plow,

    Scattering in a frantic cloud,

    Flitting, fluttering, never still,

    They seldom pause to eat their fill.

    Off the roof a sudden gust

    Convinces them they’ve had enough.

    I wish them luck, I wish, “God Speed!”

    I hope they find sustaining seed.

    I’m glad I’ve had this chance to know

    Winter robins in the snow.

    (January 2, 2014)

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION

    NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION

    I have to learn to sleep alone.

    With fleece sheets to keep me warm,

    Burrowing into my memory foam ,

    I do my best to sleep alone.

    Curled around his broader form

    I felt his heart beat like my own.

    Now I must learn to sleep alone.

    For all the lonely nights to come

    We must be two: I must be one.

    I have to learn to sleep alone.

    (January 1, 2014)

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: THE LAST OF THE PEARS

    THE LAST OF THE PEARS

    The basket of pears you sent

    From Harry and David arrived

    On time on Christmas Eve.

    They’d tissued each perfect pear

    In festive and seasonal green,

    Beribboned and bedecked,

    But not yet ripe.  Each day

    I nuked a pair in raw sugar

    And rum,  and they were tasty.

    However, on New Year’s Eve

    The last of the pears called out to me,

    Blushing and chilling in the fridge.

    It yielded softly to the knife.

    Sweeter than sugar and more

    Intoxicating than rum, the juice

    Ran down my chin, and I thought,

    “What better way for an old year

    To end or for a new year to begin.”

    12/31/2013

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: THE LAST DANCE

    • THE LAST DANCE
    • When Death decides to come will he wear
    • A tall hat and twirl a cane
    • Like Fred Astaire? Will he ask me
    • To dance?  And will I dare to say yes,
    • Yes I’ve been waiting for you,
    • And will he waltz me into the sweet
    • Bye and bye down the primrose path
    • And into the wild blue yonder?  What
    • More could a girl ask, I wonder,
    • Than a final whirl into eternal light.
    • 12/29/2013

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: HOW SOON WE FORGET

    HOW SOON WE FORGET

    Rising at dawn to join the long

    Check-in lines, lost baggage,

    Missed connections, luggage

    Seized by porters speaking

    In foreign tongues, on-board

    Plastic snacks, and on arrival

    Montezuma’s upsetting revenge,

    Altitude headaches, the swing

    And sway of undulating waves

    As we lie in our bunks, unsoothed

    By the whining winch and the engine’s drone.

    On shore the cobbled streets

    And unexpected steps slick

    With rain, lintels too low

    To duck and then the cough

    Bestowed by our plane’s tainted

    Air.  All these blessings we vow

    Never to risk again, But then

    The brochures beckon and wea

    Recall the friendships, sunrise

    On seastacks, sunsets on glacial

    Peaks, discovery’s shock of surprise,

    Eye-opening, mind-waking and

    We begin to plan again.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: THE CUP

    The loons call out to me, circling below the rim

    (As only loons can swim, proudly and gracefully)

    At the top of the Leishman cup.  I hear their querulous cry

    As I raise the cup to my expectant and willing lips,

    On the perfectly tapered rim from which no drop will fall

    As the curving handle will softly cushion my thumb.

    So does the Potter mold a marriage of utility

    With art in quiet harmony: the clay then turns to gold.

  • NORWICH YEARS: REFLECTIONS

    REFLECTIONS ON THE TOWN DUMP

    This pyramid of metal arms and legs

    Recalls a stack of antlers

    In Jackson Hole, Wyoming:

    That shock of recognition sparked

    By castoff appendages,

    That disturbance of tourists

    Decanted into catacombs

    Where skulls and bones

    Have clattered into silence,

    Duckpins struck by bowling balls.

    This tangle of lawn chairs

    Is one more moraine dropped

    By glaciers of purchase power

    Onto overstuffed landfills.

    Beyond is a small mountain

    Of tires, a ridge of refrigerators,

    Stoves, washers and dryers.

    Workers sort bottles by colors

    And stuff trailer trucks full

    Of papers.  Oils and toxic

    Chemicals are collected

    For hopefully safe disposal,

    Leaving plastics to be buried

    By bulldozers for future

    Archaeologists to ponder.

  • NORWICH YEARS: DEER CROSSING

    DEER CROSSING THE ICE

    Wood nymphs frisking on the frozen lake,

    I see them as I ski around the bend.

    They could be leading Pan a merry chase,

    Curvetting to a fanfare of March wind.

    I yearn to join them on the silver stage

    With sunlit birch and cedar scenery,

    Lift and bend in an ecstacy of grace,

    Dance to the pulsing universal heartbeat.

    As David danced at the altar of the Lord,

    As wavelets dance on the bosom of the land,

    Jete on the wind, the bold leap forward,

    Bow and retreat as birches learn to bend.

    Hooves and tails melt on a wooded isle.

    I blink to clear the water from my eyes.

  • NORWICH YEARS: AERIES

    AERIES

    (For Jim and Loraine)

    Some people live in glass houses

    And watch the arabesques of waves

    Along the shore while making harmonies

    Of baroque bassoon, flute and harpsichord,

    Or talk of politics and architects while spider

    Webs of city lights outshine the stars.

    Having climbed peaks and photographed

    The ancient sites of arts and wars,

    They perch their homes on canyon walls

    Softened by swirling mists that flow around

    Pines, cedars and jagged vertebrae

    That sharpen mountain spines.  These happy

    Few have made their lives a work of art

    To share with friends and students.  They

    Like Hawaiian dancers hold the sun,

    Moon, rain, stars and wind in their hands.

     

     

  • NORWICH YEARS: ANNIVERSARY GREETINGS

    ANNIVERSARY GREETINGS TO OLD FRIENDS

    As young marrieds we shared a tent,

    Pine-needle scented, beside Lake Erie.

    After supper we took long walks.

    Moonlight bleached the green out of the grass.

     

    Between New England and the Mid West

    Letters wove a cat’s cradle of news

    Across the miles, harpoons trailing explosives.

    We transmitted the years of our lives.

     

    We have pedaled leaf-dappled bike paths

    Into Van Gogh”s light-blasted landscapes,

    Reddened our mouths with Antwerp raspberries

    And spiraled on soprano notes around St. Paul’s.

     

    Watching children and parents disappear

    Beyond opposite bends of the river,

    We raft the whitewater, exhilarated,

    Savoring the swiftness, the infinite variety.

     

  • NORWICH YEARS: THERAPY

    THERAPY

    The pain is IT.  Her gambit

    Is to hide as in childhood games.

    She fills her pack with gear

    And takes to hills where mountain

    Ashes drop their scarlet tears

    On the trail.   She pulls herself

    By friendly birchbark handholds

    Up over barrier ledges.  

    She sucks in air until

    The fist within her diaphragm

    Unclenches, leaving her

    Seared and hollow as a

    Redwood drilled by lightning.

    The final sprint to the height

    Of land is an epiphany.