Bev Tappan

Category: Memories Poems

Recollection poems

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: LOOKING BACK

    LOOKING BACK

    I see them now, the friends of my childhood.

    We had the run of the Pine Hill neighborhood:

    Out on the vacant lot swinging at softballs,

    Called home by porch bells and whistles at nightfall.

    Pauline was my first mate, found at age three.

    Then there were Millie and Peewee and Jeanne.

    We walked as a foursome to the Anderson School,

    Played Cowboys and Injuns in adjacent woods.

    Weekends and evenings older brothers joined in

    For Kick the Can, Ringolivio or Sardines,

    Scrambled on cliffs overlooking the hospital,

    (Conveniently placed should one of us fall)

    Or perhaps tried a game of croquet in our yard,

    Rollerskating or biking or rainy day cards.

    Those were Depression days, parents worked hard.

    Those were our glory days, fondly remembered.

    (Inspired by our Chorus’ rendering of “Song for the Mira”

  • 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 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.

  • MEMORIES: THE SNOWS OF CHILDHOOD

    THE SNOWS OF CHILDHOOD

    When the northeast wind drops a snowy

    Sail and drapes it over our backyard,

    And the halos of angel choristers glow

    All over the ebony bowl of heaven,

    I pull on my wooley snowpants

    And plant my boots in my father’s tracks

    To help shovel out our garage.

    Above a furry muffler and below

    A knitted cap, my cheeks are slapped

    Red as my Yorkshire cousins’,  who once

    Dug paths to the barn.  With a small spade

    I cut cakes as square as ice cubes

    And fling them onto ramparts over my head.

    My father and I sing Jingle Bells.

  • REUTEMANN ROAD POEMS: A RECOLLECTION

    A RECOLLECTION

    My father taught me how to fish

    Casting his lure to the pickerel weeds

    Where slender shadows would be seen

    That could make a savory breakfast dish

    When fried well coated with cornmeal.

    At other times we trolled for bass

    While I rowed and he trailed his line

    Baited to make a small mouth decide

    It could not let that target pass,

    A treat too tempting to decline.

    I learned to hold the quarry close,

    Slide my hand gently down the fins,

    Wait for the tail to cease to swing,

    Then softly work the barbed hook loose

    So that it could be baited again.

    At night the horn pout were our choice

    With bulbous heads and smooth black coats

    And sweet pink flesh we’d come to know.

    Their tentacles we tried to avoid.

    Our lantern brought them to our boat.

    My father and I were often at odds.

    I wasn’t the boy scout he might have preferred.

    I did not always heed his words.

    But I can cherish this memory now

    Of me at the oars and him in the stern.

  • TAMWORTH POEMS: MOUNTAIN TOP EXPERIENCE

    MOUNTAIN TOP EXPERIENCE

    We have clickity clacked to the misty summit

    Of New England’s tallest weather-wracked peak,

    Cog after cog dropping into their sockets,

    I accompanied by my kids and their kids

    (Hoping we won’t slide back to our doom).

    At the age of ten I first ascended the trail

    That ran from the railroad base to the Lake

    Of the Clouds to the tip-top and down the Jewel,

    My mother in sneakers and black print dress

    (The last ascent my parents tried).

    But I got to know Mt. Washington well:

    Repairing cairns in the Alpine Meadows,

    Boulder-hopping down Huntington Ravine,

    Traversing to Madison Hut and back,

    And watching skiers bolt down Tuckermann’s.

    I have grown fond of the ancient rock pile.

    It was good to re-visit an old friend. 

  • MEMORIES: BREAKING AWAY

    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.


  • MEMORIES: TIME TRAVEL

    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.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: COLLAGE

    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.

     

  • TAMWORTH POEMS: HANDS

    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.

     

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: A NOTE OF THANKS TO MY MAYFLOWER GIRL

    Was it in the Sixties that I first heard

    The doorbell ring on the first of May

    And found your wildflowers at the door

    Of that hillside house your father girded

    With cedar logs and sturdy fieldstones

    To keep our family sound and safe?

    Fifty years later your “Free Spirit”

    Roses arrive (I love the concept)

    At my apartment, accompanied

    By purple and orange tulips and green

    Cymbidium orchids, as always on the First

    Day of May, their Andean-colored cheer

    Brightening up a rainy day

    And warming my heart with a memory.

  • TAMWORTH POEMS: A BACKWARD GLANCE

    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)