THE OPENING GAME
On the cribbage board your hands,
Your big and bony masculine hands,
Move your pegs, your red pegs,
And my unwomanly sturdy hands
Want my pegs to follow
But the cards do not cooperate.
Instead I tell you how my sled
Slid into the sunken garden.
You tell me your father died young
But yours was a kindly stepfather.
And now my blue pegs come up
To yours and we move in tandem.
ON SWASEY PARKWAY
The seagulls cloud around her
As she tosses the day old bread.
They swoop and dance and flutter,
Ring bills, gray and white breasted,
Clustered around open water
At the shore of the arctic expanse
Of the seldom frozen Squamscott.
She tells me they know her well,
Crowd up when she appears,
Friends with lively welcomes,
After her bakery days.
She once had a dog companion.
Now winged ones keep her company.
I tell her I will bring bread
The next time I come to the waters.
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.
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.
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.
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.
COLD COMFORT
I heard that flannel nightgowns
Are no longer to be found
In Target or in Wal-Mart
So I looked to Amazon
And luckily they still offer
In every size and color
A plethora of nighties.
From autumn into spring I
Snuggle into scarlet flannel
Bedecked with caroling cats
Worn over lycra tights.
Nothing there is more comforting
On cold and cheerless nights.
OUR CHRISTMAS CAROL
We named you for the season but we did not
Know what elfin influence your name would bestow,
For as we came to learn in later years
You were the mischief maker in the family
Who dared your younger brother to walk buck
Naked in the snow to the wall and back,
Enticed your younger sister to taste a little
Temptingly sweet-smelling acrid vanilla
And your baby sister to try a bite of dog fare.
Treasure hunts in the mossy clearing were your
Work and forced marches down our gravel drive.
Big sister led her siblings a merry chase
For which she has long since been forgiven because
She also led them to Bye Bye Miss American Pie.
OUR SARAH
On the night you were born the snow had fallen all day,
Drifting, walling us into our house on the hill,
And since we knew that you were on your way
We waited and prayed for the plow which did not come.
As dark approached we thought to ride the toboggan
To meet with a cab on the road at the foot of the Heights.
Of course the plow did finally come in time
But that is how I think of your arrival:
A flight straight into our hearts over whispering white.
And that is why I think you were the child
To try a skateboard, parachute out of a plane,
Ride on your Yamaha into the White Mountains,
Run your half-marathons and keep up
With your fast-peddling husband on mountain bikes
And hundred mile road races, and why
You still keep moving, living life on the fly.
A CHANGE OF MOOD
The storm has passed. The pines bend low
Beneath the ruthless weight of snow.
The air is thick. My spirits sag.
This dismal day bodes news that’s bad.
Our power’s out. The house is dark.
The frigid car is loath to start.
But down the road an hour or so
A patch of blue sky starts to show.
A hint of sunshine lights the sky.
And soon the pines begin to rise,
Flaunt white Christmas bows and ties
Sparkling gaily in the sunlight.
Then I begin to realize
That my despair will lift in time.