Bev Tappan

Category: Norwich Years Poems

Poems from 1973 – 1984

  • NORWICH YEARS: THE INN AT TAKAYAMA

    THE INN AT TAKAYAMA

    Clad in our blue and white guesthouse kimonos

    We sit at a low table

    Where oval cups repose while tea leaves

    Steep.  Calm as anemones.

    We have drifted in steaming baths, shed travel

    Stress with western clothes.

    Lemon lilies smile by the television.

    From cherry tree to river

    Finch notes drop with white petals.

    Kneeling on the tatami mat

    The innkeeper’s wife and her maid pull sheets

    Smooth as just fallen snow

    Tight across fiery red futons.

    Later we will stroll along the shore

    And cross the bridge to the three-story pagoda.

  • NORWICH YEARS: BACK COUNTRY TOURING

    BACK COUNTRY TOURING

    The waxless skis whisper behind our backs,

    Percussion brushes.  Our poles tap the beat

    On the edge of the drum.  Someone has emptied a sack

    Of diamonds over the thin crust of the snowfield.

    The perfect steps of a fox cross the trail

    Angling straight for a hare’s oval snowshoes.

    Here where lumber crews have clear cut the swale

    A trio of whitewashed peaks smokes into view.

    Sapling birch bark is gnawed into curls by moose.

    Bears have stapled claw marks up beechnut trees.

    In sun-softened snow our glides are long and loose.

    The downhill curves we take with thankful ease.

    We savor the last mile of the river’s edge,

    Remove our skis and cross the covered bridge.

  • NORWICH YEARS: REFLECTIONS

    REFLECTIONS ON THE TOWN DUMP

    This pyramid of metal arms and legs

    Recalls a stack of antlers

    In Jackson Hole, Wyoming:

    That shock of recognition sparked

    By castoff appendages,

    That disturbance of tourists

    Decanted into catacombs

    Where skulls and bones

    Have clattered into silence,

    Duckpins struck by bowling balls.

    This tangle of lawn chairs

    Is one more moraine dropped

    By glaciers of purchase power

    Onto overstuffed landfills.

    Beyond is a small mountain

    Of tires, a ridge of refrigerators,

    Stoves, washers and dryers.

    Workers sort bottles by colors

    And stuff trailer trucks full

    Of papers.  Oils and toxic

    Chemicals are collected

    For hopefully safe disposal,

    Leaving plastics to be buried

    By bulldozers for future

    Archaeologists to ponder.

  • NORWICH YEARS: DEER CROSSING

    DEER CROSSING THE ICE

    Wood nymphs frisking on the frozen lake,

    I see them as I ski around the bend.

    They could be leading Pan a merry chase,

    Curvetting to a fanfare of March wind.

    I yearn to join them on the silver stage

    With sunlit birch and cedar scenery,

    Lift and bend in an ecstacy of grace,

    Dance to the pulsing universal heartbeat.

    As David danced at the altar of the Lord,

    As wavelets dance on the bosom of the land,

    Jete on the wind, the bold leap forward,

    Bow and retreat as birches learn to bend.

    Hooves and tails melt on a wooded isle.

    I blink to clear the water from my eyes.

  • NORWICH YEARS: AERIES

    AERIES

    (For Jim and Loraine)

    Some people live in glass houses

    And watch the arabesques of waves

    Along the shore while making harmonies

    Of baroque bassoon, flute and harpsichord,

    Or talk of politics and architects while spider

    Webs of city lights outshine the stars.

    Having climbed peaks and photographed

    The ancient sites of arts and wars,

    They perch their homes on canyon walls

    Softened by swirling mists that flow around

    Pines, cedars and jagged vertebrae

    That sharpen mountain spines.  These happy

    Few have made their lives a work of art

    To share with friends and students.  They

    Like Hawaiian dancers hold the sun,

    Moon, rain, stars and wind in their hands.

     

     

  • NORWICH YEARS: ANNIVERSARY GREETINGS

    ANNIVERSARY GREETINGS TO OLD FRIENDS

    As young marrieds we shared a tent,

    Pine-needle scented, beside Lake Erie.

    After supper we took long walks.

    Moonlight bleached the green out of the grass.

     

    Between New England and the Mid West

    Letters wove a cat’s cradle of news

    Across the miles, harpoons trailing explosives.

    We transmitted the years of our lives.

     

    We have pedaled leaf-dappled bike paths

    Into Van Gogh”s light-blasted landscapes,

    Reddened our mouths with Antwerp raspberries

    And spiraled on soprano notes around St. Paul’s.

     

    Watching children and parents disappear

    Beyond opposite bends of the river,

    We raft the whitewater, exhilarated,

    Savoring the swiftness, the infinite variety.

     

  • NORWICH YEARS: THERAPY

    THERAPY

    The pain is IT.  Her gambit

    Is to hide as in childhood games.

    She fills her pack with gear

    And takes to hills where mountain

    Ashes drop their scarlet tears

    On the trail.   She pulls herself

    By friendly birchbark handholds

    Up over barrier ledges.  

    She sucks in air until

    The fist within her diaphragm

    Unclenches, leaving her

    Seared and hollow as a

    Redwood drilled by lightning.

    The final sprint to the height

    Of land is an epiphany.

     

  • NORWICH YEARS: DISSONANCE

    DISSONANCE

    You can’t hear the music in my headphones.

    We’re wired up to different frequencies.

    You jog to Bach, I to The Grateful Dead.

    It’s Lohengrin for you and Julio for me.

    When we dance it’s hard to keep in step.

    You dip and turn to waltzes from Vienna.

    I rock with The Beetles’ antic drums.

    No wonder we tread on each other’s feet.

    Chording is difficult in counterpoint while

    Humming a tune with Peter, Paul and Mary.

    Why don’t we start exchanging our cassettes?

    Then we might sing along in harmony.

  • NORWICH YEARS: EXCHANGE

    EXCHANGE

    They had to raise their voices to be heard

    Above the hoarsely caroling ghetto box

    Exuding Christmas atmosphere for senior

    Citizens.  The food was their concern:

    Roast beef with cheese on buttered bread would not

    Have met with Doctor Pritikin’s approval.

    They recollected chickens fed on grain,

    Scalded in iron sinks of farmhouse kitchens.

    She told of pitting dates and cracking walnuts

    With her sister after school and slicing

    Maraschino cherries for the cornflake-

    Dusted cookies known as cherry winks.

    He responded with his memories

    Of fingers stained by black walnut shells

    And pricked by nutpicks prying out the smoky

    Bits his mother folded into clouds

    Of sugary egg whites called divinity fudge

    That melted on the tongue like snow in summer.

  • NORWICH YEARS: CAIRNS

    REPAIRING CAIRNS ON MT. WASHINGTON

    We are constructing castles

    Of stone on an alpine meadow.

    Sunlight rich as butter

    Ignites mica in granite.

    High and small, blue-black

    Ravens waft past.

    Drinking champagne air

    We scan sparse grasses

    For large but liftable boulders,

    Glacier-dropped chips

    Off the old mountain block

    No longer Himalayan high.

    A Cheshire mason’s son

    Ad-libs British quips

    As we stagger back, arms

    Stretched, strapping stones

    Against our thighs like refrigerators

    Belted to dollies.  He drops

    The rocks in their sockets

    Just so, broad, level and sturdy

    Enough to hold up the upper

    Stories.  The pyramid reaches

    Its peak.  He bounds on top.

    Kodaks capture the moment.

    Once in Peru on the hills

    Above Lake Titicaca we saw

    Such chimneys of fieldstone

    But rounder on top and taller:

    Local dignitaries’ towers,

    Wolf-proof bone repositories

    Rippled by sere sedges,

    Pre-Incan time capsules

    We chose not to open,

    Landmarks on the hard-packed

    Pathway to Elyssian fields

    We were not prepared to follow.

    Our cairns today escalate

    Our spirits on our high way

    And lead us to the blustery summit,

    Blistered but lighthearted,

    Knowing that some fogbound,

    Windswept, rain-driven hiker

    Will hunker down behind them,

    Lay on thankful hands,

    Peer cloudily from marker to marker,

    And whistle as he descends

    To sheltering evergreen hedges

    And the canopy of oak and birch.

  • NORWICH YEARS: TRAIL CREW

    Fifty pounds of bark chips on my pack board

    Slant me forward, thumbs under shoulder straps,

    Eyes fixed on last year’s beech leaf carpet

    Softening the old lumber road that knifes

    The Pemigewasset Wilderness like a tunnel of light

    In an early death experience.  My small companion

    Carries over one third of her body weight.

    Crossing rivers, we topple off stepping stones

    And feel the icy mountain silver sluice

    Our toes inside our socks inside our boots.

    We’re loaded with fuel for a composting toilet

    At Thirteen Falls campsite, five miles

    Beyond the closest forest service road.

    Balanced on half-log bog bridges,

    We pause by a pond to look for moose. Another

    Month and beavers, those flat-tailed engineers,

    Will have submerged the trail.  “Get psyched!”

    Calls our leader: “Only three more miles to go!

    Water break at the next bend of the river!”

    By now we feel a boot-deep relationship

    With Franconia Brook.  We pop sourballs

    And tramp on.  Canada winds lift

    Shingles on our leafy roof,  leaking in sunlight

    And puzzle pieces of blue sky.  Esprit

    Balloons us up the last rocky slope.

    “Only two more football fields to cross!”

    Our big black bear charges ahead,

    Encouraging directives drifting in his wake.

    “Right turn to the latrine, left to the falls!”

    On sun-scoured New England granite

    Recliners, we spread out our lunches and dip

    Our water bottles in the crystal cascade,

    As the stream glissades down glacial slaloms.

  • NORWICH YEARS: WINTER BACKPACK

    WINTER BACKPACK

    Tentative fingers of dry sleet

    Tap on our cheeks in the twilight.

    We tie our tents to tree limbs

    And cook by lantern light.

    White moths tick on nylon.

    We sleep away the dark

    And wake to clarion sunshine

    Domed by cobalt glass.

    Our snowshoes write our thoughts

    On unmarked pages twined

    With notes of hooves and paws.

    But when we pause for breath

    And look up, we are skylarks

    In a silvery-netted aviary,

    By blueness mesmerized.

    On the ridge we become giants,

    Our heads level with rows

    Of crystal-coated bonsai

    And balsam bowed by snow.

    Floundering down the mountain,

    Our big feet swallowed in drifts,

    We marvel at undulations,

    Tide ripples sculpted by winds

    Which roar that night down the valley,

    Express trains passing our camp,

    Reminding us of Himalayan

    Climbers marooned in tents.

    But these winds are siroccan:

    They black out cities of stars

    And brew a broth of fine rain

    By the time we reach our cars.