WE ARE NOT ON THE LEVEL
Clambering up slippery slopes,
Avoiding obstreperous rocks,
Teetering on edgy brinks
On this over-the-hill hike,
We’ve summited our local Everest,
Mounted steep fire tower steps
And gazed with a mild surprise
Over hills and lakes and skies.
Now sprawled on boulder benches
We eat our ten o’clock lunches.
A mild breeze stirs our hair
While Nancy sketches us there.
Wind-bent pines lean toward us.
A redtail circles over us.
BREAKING AWAY
One summer your daughter’s friends
Trucked their hot air balloon
To her annual potluck barbecue
And some of us held the ends
Of the ropes that tethered down
That globe as it filled with air
And struggled up to be gone,
To be off and away somewhere.
I feel you tugging the strings
That bind our hearts to yours.
Our bittersweet memories bring
Less comfort with passing years,
And our own ties that bind
Us to our youthful friends
Are severed one by one
As they too take to the air.
TIME TRAVEL
As I cross the Connecticut line,
I am driving into the past:
Past Norwich, where in the city
Garden across from our house
A half cup, a handful
Of my young husband’s ashes
Are nourishing the roses;
Past the no longer new
Montville city highschool
Where I introduced
The first juniors and seniors
To Henry the Fifth and Macbeth;
Past the enlarged co-ed
Williams School on the campus
Of Connecticut College where
My classes of fifteen girls
Doubted the justice of
Hester’s scarlet letter;
On to the rendezvous
At a waterfront restaurant
Of Ledyard Center teachers
With whom I once taught reading
And took fall hikes in the Whites;
And here we all reminisce
With laughter and a few tears.
ON WATER
What can we say,
What can we not say,
About water?
Water, water everywhere.
As foetuses
Afloat in the uterus,
Cradled and comforted
By water
We are in our element.
It is our only element.
Seawater runs in our veins.
Not wine but water
Is the elixir of life,
Adam’s ale,
Without which we mummify
Into leathery dried sticks.
Without water
Our blue planet
Becomes a desert.
And water transports us.
It floats our boats.
We see it flow
From our mountains to our seas
And we know
That we are on a journey.
We are on life’s journey
Back to the sea our mother,
Back to the single cells
That merged into our selves,
Becoming one with the universe,
Becoming one with the water.
SEPTEMBER SATURDAY
Misty hills on the horizon,
Woolly clouds spread overhead,
At the Bearcamp, black-eyed Susans
Glow along the river’s edge.
Farmers’ market up the street,
Ripe tomatoes still for sale:
I will sip a robust coffee,
Listen to the guitar wail.
Wild blueberries for my freezer
From the hilltop we once picked
Will bring a taste of yesteryear
Through the coming winter’s drifts.
THE FIELDS OF AUGUST
The table is spread with Queen Anne’s lace.
Tapers of goldenrod glow in place.
Modest mauve milkweeds meekly bend.
Ranks of red fescue soldierly stand.
Intrusive loosestrife shoulders in,
A powerful purple infiltration.
With binderweeds along the edge
Creep flowerets of yellow vetch.
This scene that I am driving by
Is easy on the passing eye.
THE SCENE AT SWASEY PARKWAY
See how the shifting wind
Caresses the marsh grasses
Across the Squamscott River,
Bending them this way and that,
Scaring up little brown birds
Chased by the shadowy wave,
While unconcerned, on the water,
Dozens of ducklings circle
Around their mallard dams,
And cormorants sleekly swim,
Slip below the surface,
And bill up wriggling fish,
Eliciting jealous squawks
From two competing ring bills.
THE SUPER MOON
On August tenth the full moon rose
As close to earth as it ever comes
And lit the sky with a rosy glow,
An aspect as rare as it is handsome.
On that same day a minister came,
Newly invited to our pulpit,
And said that he was not so vain
As to be guided by fateful signs,
But that he hoped to bring some light
To help us define our destinations.
Let us hope that propitious moon
Illumines the journey we are on.
COLLAGE
Pieces of our shared past
Drift softly in my mind,
Flutter like shaking aspen
Leaves in the autumn wind:
Otters on the French River,
Haleakala’s silver swords,
Sea anemones aquiver,
Beaver woodcutters at work,
Red spires in Bryce Canyon,
Deer on a frozen lake,
A herd of honking sea lions,
Phosphorescence in our wake.
Shifting images coalesce,
Merge in a misty scene:
Bright moments of our happiness
Weave in a fading dream.
HANDS
They all called him handsome,
But it was not his face
I loved, though he was comely,
And his smile could erase
Any hint of gloom
That ever lingered on
In any darkened room.
It was his hands I loved,
Strong and long-fingered,
Hands that gripped an axe
With purpose and affection
To cut our yearly firewood,
Hands that drew the hoe
Between the beans and cornstalks
And arrowed our canoe
Around the foaming rocks
To where we had to go
To reach our evening campsite,
Hands that pounded tent stakes
To secure us for the night,
Loving hands that gave me
Memories of sweet delight.