SPRING CLEANING
April twenty-six has been proclaimed
As Roadside Litter Cleanup Day:
Volunteer crews have arrived to obey.
Good housekeepers would feel ashamed
Not to be cleaning out cupboards today.
Lawnkeepers are raking off dead leaves,
Gardeners are turning up fresh soil,
While everyone else in the Northeast heaves
A sigh of relief that April rains
Have washed the dirty snow away.
THE COLOR YELLOW
Forsythia’s buttery bursts
Glow in the cloudy gray
April rain, and willows’
Key lime fingers sway
In the watery atmosphere.
I’m on my outbound way,
Gladdened by hosts of daffodil
Suns on a dismal day.
A BACKWARD GLANCE
From my car radio come the slow sweet strains
Of Mozart’s First Horn Concerto, and I am
Suddenly transported into that Victorian room
Where we made music, seated on the piano stool,
Hands on the black and white keys, my girl
Standing beside me easing the smooth tones
Out of her French horn, and I am aswirl
In waves of nostalgia, longing for that ample home,
Those five ripening minds, their patient Dad.
We did not know what signal bliss we shared.
We hurried forward through a sacred time
That my heart now cries out to live again.
(April 2014)
STOP THE CLOCK
Sea shells, the exo-skeletons of pulsing flesh,
What is this fascination that they hold for us?
We search for them like treasures on the beach.
They must fulfill some kind of inner need.
I have a vase of dried flowers and reeds
That I have kept in view for many years.
The purple hyacinths that now perfume my doorway
Will droop and fade within a dozen days.
Oh let me net the butterfly of time,
Sculpture your marble presence in my mind,
Inscribe the notes of every bluebird’s song,
And keep you with me after you are gone.
(April 2014)
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
In April, driving north on Route Sixteen,
You top a hill just south of Ossipee
And in your face arise the peaks and flanks
Of Washington and the Presidential Range.
Fiercely white, they reign over the horizon,
An awesome sight you want to keep your eyes on.
But you go on and Chocorua hoves into view,
Clothed with his Sisters in somewhat mottled hues,
And they call out for climbing, but you know
The trails will still be treacherous with snow.
Black ice will subtly coat the shaded rocks,
And slow going may find you still on top
When shadows coalesce around your feet,
The sun beating an all-too-fast retreat.
Some shining prospects should be kept in sight
Until the time for venturing is just right.
(April 2014)
ON THE SECOND DAY OF APRIL
This morning as I drove down our street
(No April fool!) I saw a real bald eagle
Perched high up in a leafless tree,
Feathers held close in the frosty air,
Keeping his eagle eye fixed upon
The newly black surface of Brickyard Pond
So recently rid of its lid of ice.
I’m sure he was thinking it would be nice
To spot a fishy shape moving there
Or a careless robin along the shore.
At breakfast I had been pleased to see
A house finch in the blue spruce tree
Below my window, ready to hop
Back into the sheltered nest in its top-
Most branches, last year’s nestling,
No doubt on the lookout for a mate,
Thinking of making a tentative date
As soon as the sun warms up the air
To check out the housing situation
And get some eggs ready to sit on.
At last, when I had got back home,
Ready to close the garage door,
A cardinal bugled his announcement calls:
“I’m here! I’m here! Don’t come near!”
I got the message loud and clear:
Elusive spring is finally here!
A CHANGE OF MOOD
(With thanks, as always, to R. Frost)
I know how Hester must have stood,
Branded with shamed ignominy,
And why she took to the woods.
Public humiliation can be hard
To take, but on the other hand,
I have found sympathetic friends
And shared my woes with them:
“I didn’t expect to see YOU here!”
“Well you can leave if you want to!”
Their laughter dissolved my embarrassment.
I now can tell myself, “Get over it!”
(3/30/14)
LEARNING HOW TO LET GO
The child’s umbilical cord
Is the first binding tie
Which has to be broken.
And then our nurslings must
Be weaned from the breast.
Nestlings have to learn to fly.
The yellow school buses
Take them from our doors.
We share an empty house
With an aging partner or spouse,
Who one day is no more.
Comrades wave their goodbyes.
We all go on our ways,
Turning into memories.
So let us raise a parting glass
To all the loved ones of our pasts.
THE TRAIL NOT TAKEN
(With apologies to R. Frost)
I followed the Great Hill Road,
Heavily sanded on melting ice,
To where it diverged to the wood
And found a parking space.
I took out my snowshoes and poles,
Tightened the bindings twice,
Set out down the trail,
And then I felt the rain.
The mountain had sent forth clouds
Which blotted out the sun.
Much as I longed to go on,
I knew I had to run.
Oh I will remember the way
To that white unblemished path.
I’ll come back on a better day
To trace its beckoning track.
1. KNITTING LESSON
Skeins of yarn on the window ledge
Shine in a basket, spraying winter
Sunlight onto the rusty, homespun
Jacket and faded denim skirt
Of a full-breasted farm woman
Whose arms encircle a daughter’s shoulders.
Her own half-finished sweater laid
Aside on her lap, she leans to the left,
Chin resting on the smaller bonnet,
Bony hands moving small fingers
In the measured minuet of steel needles.
Scissors gleam faintly on the floor.
2. FARMYARD IN WINTER
A small sun, he glows in the gray morning.
Breast and shoulders gold as the stooks of straw
Bundled in front of his thatched-roof hutch,
Comb and wattle red as the robin perched
On the wall above him, a huddle of hens
In the shadows behind him,
Chaunticleer surveys the snowy yard.
Like oil on water, muted echoes
Of his light whisper from granite stones
And roosting hens while two
Industrious wives peck in the snow
That froths and foams across the straw-
Strewn ground, on tree and fence and wall
And distant roof: cumulous clouds
That outline his dominion.
3. POTATO PLANTERS
They bend in tandem: his hoe
Scoops the hole; her hand lets fall
The seed potatoes. Sunrise
Reddens his vest. Her muddy skirt
Is shadowy green. In the pale
Distance bleached horizon,
Mauve town and chartreuse plain
Recede. A sequence of trees is sunstruck,
Sabots and dirt-streaked pants
Share earth tones with the roughly spaded
Ground. A donkey nods by the baby
Basket-cradled under a live oak.
4. SHEPHERDESSES WATCHING A FLIGHT OF WILD GEESE
Her right arm is bent to shade her eyes
From haze-filtered autumn sunlight
That mutes the gold and coral hedge
And dusts a Biblical patina onto sheep,
Tranquil as gravestones, masticating
Olive grass into smoky wool.
Her left hand, palm down,
Signals her companion to be still and hear
The faint and fading colloquy of tourists
Winging away from winter. Her friend
Leans back on the embankment looking up,
Her child’s face soft with wonder.