Bev Tappan

Category: Natural World Poems

on plants and other wild things

  • TAMWORTH POEMS: STOP THE CLOCK

    STOP THE CLOCK

    Sea shells, the exo-skeletons of pulsing flesh,

    What is this fascination that they hold for us?

    We search for them like treasures on the beach.

    They must fulfill some kind of inner need.

    I have a vase of dried flowers and reeds

    That I have kept in view for many years.

    The purple hyacinths that now perfume my doorway

    Will droop and fade within a dozen days.

    Oh let me net the butterfly of time,

    Sculpture your marble presence in my mind,

    Inscribe the notes of every bluebird’s song,

    And keep you with me after you are gone.

    (April 2014)

  • REUTEMANN ROAD POEMS: ROWING

    ROWING AT SUNSET

    Feathered blades skip over the waves

    As I lean back into the westerly wind

    That encases and straightens my arrowing scull

    Crossing the cove to the river’s bend.

    A raftful of cormorants watch me pass,

    Rubber necks circling like periscopes.

    Awkwardly,  I too twist to survey

    Over each shoulder the liquid highway

    And pause, outrigger oars held flat,

    To let a motorboat rocket by

    That flushes up the black spectators

    Frantically flapping in disarray.

    They settle again as sinuous swimmers,

    Casually dipping for fishy hors d’oeuvres,

    And I resume my water skimming,

    The sun as I turn a glory in my eyes.

  • REUTEMANN ROAD: EVANESCENCE

    EVANESCENCE

    Tonight we see two moons:

    One has fallen in the pond,

    A fire opal clasped in prongs,

    Caged in black branches.

    The other moon is ringed in flames.

    Knowing this moment cannot last,

    We hurry to get a camera.

    On our return, pale ripples

    Stir the darkening water

    And smoking ashes shimmer in the sky.

    (Reutemann Road poems 1960-1972)

  • REUTEMANN ROAD: ALL HALLOWS’ DAY

    ALL HALLOWS DAY

    Prizefighters, the trees, muscular and bare-

    Chested, have shrugged off florescent

    Dressing gowns, ready to go

    Six rounds with winter, that old

    Title holder.  It’s the first of November.

    We are out to resurrect the leaves,

    Give them a new start on life

    In compost piles where they will steam,

    Reduce themselves to a stew chewed by hearty

    Worms into a meal fit for the delicate

    White fingers of April radishes.

    Harvesting leaves is not like tugging out

    Rocks or cutting clusters of grapes.

    With wide-spread arms we hug

    The feathery mounds, we press them down

    Into the cart.  My husband tramples them underfoot

    Like hay in the barn loft, he recalls,

    Dust floating up and people sneezing.

    Chickadees complain.  Gray squirrels

    Brandish their tails.  A jay keeps his distance.

    Under the clouds a focal flock of geese

    Shift lanes, honking for the right-of-way,

    Ignored by a pair of hang-gliding hawks.

    Radical tamarack candles flame

     Among conservative pines and cedars,

    Electing to cast all their needles off

    In one annual fling rather

    Than pluck them out a few at a time.

    At noontime we pause.  I cut pink

    And maroon chrysanthemums for the table.

    Bumblebees fasten themselves like pins

    On the yellow stamen.  I flick them off.

    But that evening on the kitchen counter

    A microscopic neon emerald bee-like

    Creature glints on a pastel petal.

    (Reutemann Road Poems, 1960-1972)

  • 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.

  • THE PERFECT MOMENT

    Snowfall sometimes frosts the pines

    Bends them low, bowed, supine

    Layers every twig and branch

    Creates a winter wonderland

    Bleaches white the forest floor

    Covers every blemish over.

    The perfection cannot last

    Occurs to us as we drive past.

  • ONE MORNING AFTER A SLEET STORM

    The moon was a whitegold earring
    Worn by a frosted fir
    While ice chimes clinked and jingled
    His thoughts were all of her.

    Sunrise pale and leaden
    Embraced the silver rim
    Of the rime-encrusted woodland.
    Her thoughts were all of him.