Bev Tappan

Category: Adventure Poems

Traveling and exploring are the keys to longevity

  • 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.

  • 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.

     

  • REUTEMANN ROAD POEMS: ROWING

    ROWING AT SUNSET

    Feathered blades skip over the waves

    As I lean back into the westerly wind

    That encases and straightens my arrowing scull

    Crossing the cove to the river’s bend.

    A raftful of cormorants watch me pass,

    Rubber necks circling like periscopes.

    Awkwardly,  I too twist to survey

    Over each shoulder the liquid highway

    And pause, outrigger oars held flat,

    To let a motorboat rocket by

    That flushes up the black spectators

    Frantically flapping in disarray.

    They settle again as sinuous swimmers,

    Casually dipping for fishy hors d’oeuvres,

    And I resume my water skimming,

    The sun as I turn a glory in my eyes.

  • MEMORIES: WALES

    GHOST TOWNS IN NORTH WALES

    We walk in upland dales past roofless towns.

    The wind off glowering crags is

    Muffled by slate fence rows: mansized

    Slabs ragged from edge to edge,

    Planted in soil too thin to bury the dead.

    These blue-black panels, weathering grey,

    Echo the softly slurring gutterals

    Of short and sturdy dark-haired Celts:

    Miners who with their wives and children

    Walked these paths some forty years ago.

    Their boys at twelve did not join boy scout

    Troops but took their futile candles

    And six-foot iron drill rods

    To brave the brimstone depths they’d

    Long been warned about by chapel preachers.

    Each night they hurried out for a wash

    And supper and choir practice, that

    Other world that kept them sane and literate

    Along with lunchtime meetings where

    Roberts’ Rules governed debates.

    Empty now are the slate caverns.  Vandalized

    Is the manager’s house in the grove.

    Open to wind and hail, the miners’ homes

    Welcome the chimney swifts while

    Waiting for men who never returned from war.

    We point binoculars at hardy sheep

    Cropping the mountain meadows:

    Their lambs are radioactive since Chernoble.

    A wagtail showers himself

    In acid rainfall blown here from New York.

  • SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE: DISPATCHER

    OUR DISPATCHER

    At the newly painted station

    A small boy attaches himself

    To our luggage and ties on tags.

    The White Star Line bus will,

    He assures us, leave on time.

    Meanwhile on the pavement,

    With shrill cries he alerts

    The passersby to the imminence

    Of departure for Mexico City

    In fifteen minutes.  Sure enough,

    He is soon loading our bags

    And being reimbursed again.

    As the bus pulls out, he

    Comes down the aisle with

    A basket of tortillas

    And writes out tickets for

    The four senoritas who heeded

    His recent announcements.

    With regret, on the outskirts

    Of San Miguel, we observe

    The young entrepreneur

    Taking his leave.

  • SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE: BOYS

    GOING IN STYLE

    The boys in Mexican glassworks

    Swing their blowpipes in parabolas

    Like gauchos twirling riatas,

    Eliciting form from incandescence.

    Precise as ballet dancers,

    They make their moves at intersecting

    Routes, aware but casual,

    Nothing between the flesh and the flame.

    The boys in Mexican bullrings

    Entice the dark charger with magenta capes

    Like women flirting with handkerchiefs.

    Their suggestive invitations

    Invite a close encounter:

    Nothing between the hip and the horn,

    They dance a tango with destiny,

    Teasing entropy into art.

  • SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE: EL DIA

    EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

    (THE DAY OF THE DEAD)

    The skull is an old preoccupation.

    Hamlet spoke to Yorick,  and

    Pre-Columbian burials yield

    These tiny tokens, mementi mori,

    And aboriginal poets lamented,

    With Ecclesiastes, the briefness of flowers:

    They knew that man is born to die.

    All their funerary postures –

    Bodies flat or flexed, singular or

     Communal, came to the same conclusion.

    Children today make sugar skulls

    For dolls they dress in pastel papers,

    White hands protruding from sleeves.

    They set out candy for the dead,

    Sweet imitations of bread and fruit,

    Refreshments for the long journey,

    And visit skeletons in the crypts,

    Dusty bonnets on infant skulls,

    Holding reunions with family bones.

  • SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE: TOURISTS

    DETACHMENT

    Like gods in ancient Greece, tourists

    Survey the scene from points of vantage:

    They sit on balconies, peer into courtyards,

    Photograph wedding parties in archways.

    Darker skins and liquid syllables

    Charm them, but eyes do not exchange

    Signals.  They risk nothing.  Soon enough,

    They will be winging back to Olympus.

  • SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE: WALLS

    NO TRESPASSING

    In San Miguel the walls

    Are thick and high and topped

    With shards of broken glass:

    Translucent, they glint in the sun.

    Above us on the hillside,

    Ranks of towering cacti

    Guard their fruit with poisoned

    Darts ready to fire.

    Although young boys can climb

    The organ pipes, unscratched,

    To pick their small berries,

    They do not scale the walls.

  • SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE: THE PARK

    INCONGRUITY

    The grackles that chimed like a thousand cuckoos

    At six o’clock have retired, but one

    Splatters his hand as he sits on the bench

    Under the box-shaped tree in the park.

    A mariachi band tunes up for a wedding

    In the cathedral across the street.

    Balloon vendors bounce their punching-bag faces.

    Strolling teenagers banter and laugh.

    Then an American hard rock group,

    The Misguided Youth, begin to check

    Their mikes.  The woman drums a roll.

    He leaves ahead of the opening absurdity.

  • SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE: BALCONY

    TWO VIEWS FROM A BALCONY

    (1)

    A Thornton Burgess old lady, toad in a shawl,

    She leans forward to peel the cactus pears:

    Three quick cuts and canvas flaps unfold

    From the beet-red fruit, tasteless and seedy.

    Church bells clang the quarter hour.  Iron

    Shoes clink on cobblestones.  Unhurried

    By smacking stick or placid curse, burros

    Shoulder sacks of mesquite from the hills.

    (2)

    The artists of the Revolution

    Painted workers massive across

    The back , with Popeye arms and hands.

    Carved in stone, their heads were bowed.

    This crew constructing reservoirs

    On the roof across the street are whistling.

    Onto their slender shoulders they lift

    The tins of cement as light as  ballerinas.

  • SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE: BALLET

    EVENING BALLET

    Foot-lighted by fluorescent

    Jacarandas more purple than amethysts,

    Against a backdrop of sunset

    And mountains, the egrets

    Perform in black pines:

    Backflap for landings, soar

    With tightly curled necks, and

    Like slim ebony carvings

    Balance on tree tops.

    Their roof-top audience

    Of American writers,

    Refueled with creative juices,

    Applaud along with yawping nighthawks.