They briefly grace our lives.  We know

One year for them is seven of ours.

When we have barely aged at all,

It will be time for them to go.

In parting from our pets we learn

How hard it is to love and lose.

Happiness is not meant to be eternal:

This is the destiny we did not choose.

And when in latter years our friends,

Our partners and our pets depart,

They leave us aimless, wondering, at loose ends,

How to go on with broken hearts.

Our saving grace is comrades in despair.

Such grief our neighbors have cause to share.

The skeletal tree

By the roadside, in the meadow,

That seemed to greet me

When I drove into town,

Its jaggedy branches

Held stoically high

Whatever the chances

Of windstorm or ice,

Gave me courage to face

My ninety-plus years

With a modicum of grace

And a drop of good cheer.

But today it is gone

And I can’t help but mourn.

]]> https://bevtappan.net/2016/10/02/tamworth-poemsrequiem/feed/ 0 1526 https://bevtappan.net/2015/08/03/tamworth-poems-pacing/ https://bevtappan.net/2015/08/03/tamworth-poems-pacing/#respond Mon, 03 Aug 2015 00:28:17 +0000 https://bevpoems.wordpress.com/?p=851 PACING

On the first day of August I taste

My first ear of garden-fresh corn.

Not a single sweet kernel is wasted

And soon the whole earful is gone.

But with tears in my eyes I recall

A man who, perceptive and slow,

Savored each delicate morsel

As he nibbled his corn row by row.

He split measured logs for our stove,

Swung his ax in unhurried arcs

And moved our canoe with sure strokes

To reach our next campsite by dark.

Now as I hasten my days,

Willing the hours to pass,

I long for his deliberate pace

And the will not to live life so fast.

The first Monday in May

Slid off the calendar.

It mingled into Tuesday,

Dissolved in thin air.

The dentist could not reach me.

He wondered where I was.

It was an anniversary,

A day of grief and loss.

I could not bear to re-live

The day my sweetheart died.

There’s nothing that I would not give

To have him by my side.

Those alabaster presidential peaks
Outshine a million cities’ neon gleams.
Chocorua’s guardian ridge and craggy brow
Look down benevolently on our town.

Not far from here I loved and was well loved
And in these parts my ancestors once throve.
Since childhood I have trekked these beckoning hills.
Something there is that calls me to them still.

When I no longer reach the summit views,
Walks on these valley trails will also do.

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.

]]> https://bevtappan.net/2014/12/02/tamworth-poems-a-change-of-mood/feed/ 0 753 https://bevtappan.net/2014/11/27/japan-poems-odyssey/ https://bevtappan.net/2014/11/27/japan-poems-odyssey/#respond Thu, 27 Nov 2014 13:14:43 +0000 http://bevpoems.wordpress.com/?p=749 ODYSSEY

I have returned to Japan after thirty years

Since our youngest daughter made her way

To complete in Osaka her BU college degree.

Her father was still jogging every day.

Life and the rice fields were still green.

On this fall visit to Japan I plead

For some relief from grief.  I ask

The gracious Buddha for heart’s ease.

And as the strenuous swift days pass

Through alien and exotic scenes,

I sense a slowly growing distance

Between my sweet lost loves and me,

A moat of separation from the past.

Though no less dear their features be,

I stand outside the looking glass

Between what is and what can never be,

Between acceptance and a world of pain,

And lightening my dark misery

I feel a welcome sense of peace.

The rice stalks now are drying in the fields.

I’ve gotten used to 

The empty chair,

The unwrinkled pillow,

And one place at the table

Without you,

But how can I watch

The moon tangled in black branches,

The sun rise over Carter Notch,

Or the first flakes of new snowfall

Without you?

How many campfires did you lay,
Birchbark, twigs and slender sticks,
To tempt the creeping tongue of flame
And feed its fiery appetite?
You learned to build the pyramid
With tinder arching over bark:
A single match would serve to wick
The pyre construed with boy scout art.
How many trees did you cut down
And split and stack for winter fuel
In the Franklin stove that kept us warm
And gave us cheerful hearts as well?
Now as I feed my grandson’s blaze
Constructed with his sage advice,
I think of your consistent ways
And feel the smoke tear up my eyes.
(July 2014)

I say I’ve shifted gears,

Embarked on new affairs,

Traveled to foreign ports,

Shrugged off all my cares.

But then a memory

Will catch me unaware

And I will start to weep

Because you are not here.

Because you are not here,

My love, because you are not there:

No matter where I look for you

You are not anywhere.