Bev Tappan

Category: Memories Poems

Recollection poems

  • FOR COUSIN BARB

    Dear Cuz, I think about you
    Every morning when I make
    My half of the connected beds
    And smooth out the gigantic quilt
    You made to cover them both

    I recollect we played with paper
    Dolls beneath the branches of
    Our grandfathers’ hydrangea bush
    Not knowing of the sorrows we
    Would face along with many joys.

    You lost a brother to pneumonia
    While serving in the Vietnam War
    And then were left a teenager
    With a defective infant
    Who after all did well enough.

    And after many happy years
    With a good man found yourself
    Alone, confused and wandering
    On a cold and snowy night
    Towards a merciful pneumonia.

  • Bev reads at ESOM – 7/22

    Ellen Schmidt Open Mike – July 18, 2022
    hosted by Dan Tappan

    • On a Summer Evening
    • My Grandfather’s House

  • Bev read at ESOM – 4/22

    Ellen Schmidt Open Mike – April 4, 2022

    • hosted by Dan Tappan
    • Timing is Everything
    • A Backward Glance

  • Bev reads at ESOM – 10/21

    Ellen Schmidt Open Mike on October 18, 2021.

    • hosted by Dan Tappan
    • White Mountain Art
    • A Show Of Colors (Autumn 2016)
    • On October 12th

    Ellen Schmidt Open Mike on October 4, 2021

    • Dan Tappan host
    • A Recollection
    • My Grandfather’s House

  • 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.