Bev Tappan

Category: Family Poems

Love songs to family members

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: HAND ME DOWNS

                        Hand Me Downs

    My husband was a small town Indiana boy

    Who heard the lonely whistle of the train

    Just down the street and watched the glowworms

    Dance above the seas of cornfields lapping

    At his door.  The eldest son, at the age of twelve

    He drove a tractor on his uncle’s farm.

    In the village school his father was the principal.

    His mother put small stitches into quilts

    And watered African violets with her tears.

    Chickens, bees and gardens fed them for the year

    Along with fallen fruit and Uncle Paul’s

    Pork and goat milk.  Nothing went to waste.

    So when a research scientist, he built a woodland

    House, cleared trails and planted raised-bed 

    Gardens fertilized by red worm-generated compost.

    Gardens and chickens were carried on by his son

    An engineer who felt the family heritage was worth

    Preserving and perhaps even passing on.

     

     

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: CUTTING THE CORD

    CUTTING THE CORD

    At the age of twelve, why did I

    Decide it was time to be baptized?

    In our church, full immersion was the rite.

    I never experienced an epiphany,

    No inner voices spoke to me,

    My nights were calm: no vision dreams.

    It was a fairly embarrassing sight

    To be draped in a tent-like gown of white:

    A dunked and dripping young acolyte.

    But it seemed like a step toward maturity,

    Like a high school diploma, a college degree:

    An escape from parental authority.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: THE STAFF OF LIFE

    THE STAFF OF LIFE

    My daughter has carved a stout hiking staff

    For me to carry along Elysian trails.

    She thinks that on that journey I will have

    A need to warn sky bears to stay away.

    We carried bear sticks once in Glacier Park

    And bear bells tinkled merrily as we walked

    Back when the ice fields still were white and hard.

    That they would disappear we never thought.

    The river of time runs either slow or fast

    Depending on the season and the flood.

    How much I’d give to live again the past

    And I’d not change it even if I could.

     

     

     

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: ECLIPSE MOMENT

    ECLIPSE MOMENT

    (A Sonnet for Mark and Sarah)

    We watched the moon consume the sun,

    Its ebony circle slowly dim

    The light, but darkness did not come

    Until the black blot reached the rim

    Where only a halo of shine leaked out

    And pale pink bled on every horizon.

    It was then we felt the fearsome clout

    Of nothingness to put our eyes on:

    No crickets chirped, the birds were still.

    All energy, spirit seemed to leave us.

    Our batteries were drained of will

    Luna, moon goddess, of life bereaved us.

    How we all cheered when light returned.

    The sun our gratitude had earned.

     

     

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: IN MEMORIAM

    IN MEMORIAM

    We saw what it was to labor with love

    Everywhere his hands had worked.

    He girded us with cedar logs

    And sheltered us with sturdy trusses.

    He paved a path around the pond

    And cleared a loop trail through the brush.

    Hie gardens fed us healthy food.

    Colorful blooms were harmonious.

    Patient, quiet, steadfast and good,

    A listener whom we could trust,

    At ease in the role of fatherhood,

    Not the type to make a fuss,

    He was taken from us all too soon.

    How we wish he were still with us.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: CHOICES

    CHOICES

    The wintry wind whipped at our cheeks

    Teared our eyes and misted our glasses.

    Before the end of the driveway we meekly

    Turned in submission to its lashes.

    It’s no day to venture onto the slopes:

    Lifts won’t run be running in these blasts.

    So much for our high school senior’s hopes

    Of trying the Notch’s challenge at last.

    Instead we head for the nearest mall

    Load up on soda, popcorn and nachos

    And find a film agreeable to all

    Where the weather is less ferocious.

    Sometimes it’s better not to try

    Against all odds to do or die.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: FAMILY REUNION

    FAMILY REUNION

    On the river bank

    I look for you

    Where the poplars bend

    And our green canoe

    Hangs under the eave

    Of the little shed.

    On the grassy heights

    Of old battlefields

    Where the purple knotweed

    Now invades

    I trace the trails

    Where we once skied.

    As your daughters voice

    Old family songs

    My heart responds:

    I sing along.

  • REUTEMANN ROAD POEMS: MY GRANDFATHER’S HOUSE

     MY GRANDFATHER’S HOUSE

    Under the hydrangeas on the front lawn

    I played with little dolls, the ones

    You cut dresses for out of sewing scraps,

    Envying my cousins their sibling

    Camaraderie.  Blackberries bubbled

    In pastures overgrown with birches

    Where no wolves loitered and rose

    Again at breakfast dewy with cream.

    The linoleum was cool under feet admonished

    To wear sandals.  Sunlight baptized

    The dining room and half an acre

    Of canning vegetables and cucumbers

    To be salt-layered in crocks.  Roosters

    With a glad cry woke me on the airy

    Piazza where insects ticking on screens

    Had lulled me to sleep.  My humpty-dumpty

    Grandfather brought four daughters and

    Eliza Jane down from New Brunswick

    To start a new century in a new land.

    A master carpenter, he built their house

    Commodious with indoor plumbing.  My

    Youngest aunt was married in the parlor

    While I, a flower girl with stage fright,

    Cried on the oak stairs.  By that front

    Window my grandmother’s cheek

    Was granite under my lips when Aunt

    Pearl led me to her coffin.  “Let

    Your vittles shut your mouths,” Grandpa

    Advised his grandchildren at the table.

    Every Thanksgiving the hydrangeas were brittle

    Brown cotton candy on fragile sticks.

     

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: A PASSING THOUGHT

    A PASSING THOUGHT

    Flesh of my flesh

    (As well as their father’s)

    Bone of my bone

    (Their father’s too)

    How proud they make us

    These five fine siblings,

    Spouses and offspring.

    We are transmuted

    Translated to new

    And complex persons.

    What more do we ask

    Than to have a share

    In this chain of lifetimes

    On our planet Earth.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: HERITAGE

    HERITAGE

    What we leave behind

    Is not a rich estate:

    A bent for garden plots,

    A gift for making rhymes,

    A music-making taste.

    Or perhaps you’ll find

    Some pre-Columbian pots,

    A few hooked rugs in place,

    A great-grandmother’s table,

    A World War silver star,

    Some letters from Peru

    With sterling silver flatware.

    And hopefully we’re able

    To leave behind for you

    A wrap-around of love

    To warm you when we’re gone.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: PLACEMENTS

    PLACEMENTS

    I’ve grown accustomed to this space

    These two big rooms I shared with you

    Where in the parking lot they face

    I see compadres come and go.

    We shared small places, you and I

    Two-person tents on river banks

    The back porch of a double-wide

    Youth hostels where we flung our packs.

    But we shared larger spaces too

    The canyon’s depths, the river’s run

    The prairie’s breadth, the ocean’s blue

    The broad earth was our living room.

    Now you have sought a distant star

    While I am lightly tethered here.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: A MEMORY

    A MEMORY

    A squealing pulley, flapping angels:

    Wilbur’s poem recalls to mind

    Sixty years ago in Maine

    I fastened clothespins on a line.

    At my feet a red-capped youngster

    At my back the veterans’ barracks,

    Sheets wind-whipped as they were hung

    Fingers numb and face wind-slapped.

    When I turned to find my son

    He was nowhere to be found

    Playing hide and seek with Mom,

    Laughing behind our open door.

    There is no price I would not pay

    To live that life again today.