Bev Tappan

Category: Natural World Poems

on plants and other wild things

  • REUTEMANN ROAD: BREAKING OFF

    BREAKING OFF

    The old bass grins with a mended lip,

    A zippered gash where a hook was ripped

    Across the cartilage and out,

    Taking a corner of the mouth.

    She chose to spew the succulent bait

    Rather than swim on a leash and wait

    For the dull hammer thud on the head,

    The knife edge sawing through the neck.

    The old wolf lopes with a missing paw

    On the stubborn bone she chose to gnaw

    In a long cacophony of pain

    And not like a docile dog remain

    In the tender clasp of talons of steel,

    Starving by inches on rancid meat,

    Awaiting the bullet’s swift reprieve.

    The best revenge is living free.

    (Reutemann Road Poems 1960-1972)

  • REUTEMANN ROAD: THE CATCH

    THE CATCH

    Two hooks in her cheek, one in her lip,

    The bass lay passive on the gravel bank

    As though my fingers twisting barbs out of cartilage

    Were veterinarian healing probes.

    Back in the water, leashed on a stringer,

    She rested in rusty bottom reeds,

    Sometimes backpaddling the length of her tether

    With small delicate strokes of her fins.

    She’d made her protest demonstration when the pain

    First snagged her face, that treacherous

    Red lure.  She arched my rod, launching

    Herself like a rocket out of control.

    I sharpened the blade for a fast scalpel cut

    At the base of the head.  She lay still

    As a patient on an operating table.  Scales scattered.

    I saw her sacks of roe were full.

    My father taught me how to fish, threading

    The worms as casually as bacon rind

    Onto the hooks, smoothing down the fins,

    Enclosing the perch in his freckled hand.

    (Reutemann Road Poems, 1960-1972)

  • REUTEMANN ROAD POEMS: DEER

    ARMISTICE

    All year long the deer evade us:

    Blurry twilight bounds at the end

    Of the path as the shepherd tugs at his leash,

    Shadows at dawn by the pond’s outlet.

    On snowshoes we cross so many tracks

    Up to the meadow and down to the brook,

    Briarpatch beds and mounds of pellets:

    A phantom herd inhabits our acres.

    This September Sunday we turn

    Into the gravel drive and meet

    A pair of whitetails grazing like calves,

    Unhurriedly waving their flags in farewell.

    An air of Glasnost has prevailed

    Since the dog retired to New Hampshire.

    Woodchucks browse on lettuce and beans.

    A great blue heron steps high in the shallows.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: BUYER BEWARE

    BUYER BEWARE

    I marvel how the trunks of dead and dying trees

    Are garlanded in fall with poison ivy leaves

    Gladdening the eye and asking to be gathered

    To deck a table for a feast in autumn.

    As coral snakes beguile like harmless cousins,

    Just so were ancient reefs adorned with sirens,

    Caskets with resurrection lilies beautified,

    And cereals with powdered sugar iced,

    And no-down-payment mortgages entice.

    Glittering like gold is worthless pyrite.

    Caveat emptor still is good advice.

  • NORWICH YEARS: WINTER TRAILMAKING

    WINTER TRAILMAKING IN MT WASHINGTON VALLEY

    It’s the next thing to walking on water,

    Sinking snowshoes into drifts

    Of down almost out of sight,

    Lifting webbed feet easier than

    We thought but effortfully, white

    Ashes floating up like smoke,

    To take the next giant step

    On immaculate virgin territory.

    This cold day we see no  mouse prints,

    No trails of birdclaws like the tracings

    Of sandpipers playing tag with the tide,

    Only dents of icy missiles

    Windblasted into marble quilts.

    But look.  A raven evicted from pipe-frozen

    Flats above the treeline takes

    Lodging in a topless cage

    Of bare branches, querying us

    With raucous uncrowlike challenges.

    And by that wall a small red squirrel

    With straggly tail munches a pineseed

    Until we shift a pole and he

    Submerges into the briarpatch,

    Rockets up a hemlock and turbo-

    Drives across arboreal highways

    As silently as the beech leaves

    Flutter and scatter across the snow

    Onto our cross-stitched calling cards.

  • REUTEMANN ROAD POEMS: BACKYARD EROTICA

    BACKYARD EROTICA

    Rain sated, the lily quivers:

    Magenta, deep-throated

    Open since daybreak, leaning

    Into the shimmering

    Gauze curtain of water.

    An interlude of silence:

    We hear the final

    Chime on the patio stones.

    Stroked by sunlight,

    The lily arches, uplifted

    For the hummingbird’s thrust.

  • NEW ENGLAND: APRIL IN NORTH STONINGTON

    On Lantern Hill the shadbush blooms
    And clouds meander overhead.
    The rocks are rough beneath my boots
    The lichens stiff beneath my hand.

    A small black-suited butterfly
    Imbibes the blossoms airy mead.
    I watch the redtails hover by
    Stretch out my legs and take my ease.

    I’ve heard that when the shadbush blows
    The shadfish breast New England stream
    Their frail white petals brush my nose
    Among the still-emerging leaves.

  • AT HOME: LE PRINTEMPS

    I

    Quacking and chattering like demented ghosts,
    Small frogs in woodland pools
    Startle us. We lift an oak leaf
    To uncover the first velvet pipsissewa.

    Onioins and pink coated peas
    Are lined up in trenches like good soldiers
    Waiting for the sun to bugle reveille.
    Chives shoulder green lances.

    Rejoice greatly, ye robins and phoebes.
    Gambol, you worms, in the compost. Our window
    Shutters make excellent nesting ledges.
    Prepare a welcome for the tree swallows.

    II

    Like a chocolate bunny
    Encircled by Easter
    Eggs, the gray
    Squirrel sits
    Among the yellow,
    White and lavender
    Crocuses eating
    Seeds under the bird
    Feeder. Suddenly
    He runs up
    The ree and clings
    Horizontally, flapping
    His beaver tail,
    A dusty rug,
    Head turning
    To eye my binoculars.

    Some people
    Hear colors.
    The cardinal’s a siren;
    His wife, Morse
    Code. In polyphony
    They peck like hens.

    Holding up
    Her red beads,
    The maple admires
    Her reflection
    In the window glass.