Category: Norwich Years

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.

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.

MUDTIME IN CRAFTSBURY

They look at us with calm.

Inquiring eyes, Vermont

Draft horse sculptures in barnyards,

Carved of weatherproof cedar,

Shoes as big as platters,

Pressing meshed Budweiser

Circles into a mash

Of mud, manure and chaff

Misted with fertile steam,

Essence of rural spring,

While killdeer dart and halt,

Concealed by tawny stalks,

Crying “I’m here! I’m here!”

Beside the talkative creek,

And apple-breasted thrushes

Cluster on barren branches,

Alert for worms that slither

Through warm lubricious earth.

A CHANGE OF MOOD

(In Pinkham Notch)

Winter nights can be too lonely

To prolong.  I’m off the bunk

And on the trail when the first blue glow

Lanterns the snow, and the last

Daystar flashlights over the ridge.

I hear the falls before I reach them:

Dark volcanic seethings

Unseen beneath a polar carapace:

Placid gravemounds of snow

And brittle veils of frozen spray.

The lodge windows are fireflies below,

Heatless and harmless.  Above

The next switchback a rosy white

Spectre looms, brightens:

Alpine snowfields fired by sunrise.

Now my heels crunch stairsteps

Down the path.  I relish

The bounding pawprints of a weasel,

The cascade’s vigorous mirth,

The parade of pink clouds up the notch.

JULIA

She speaks as always without preamble

As soon as I lift the phone:

You are watching the MacNeil Lehrer Hour?

The Polish inflection is strong.

Yes, of course, I would not miss it.

I’m very proud of your son

I answer, but she has already hung up

And hurried back to observe

What else our Congressman will say:

He is rejecting Contra aid.

That morning we argued about his views

While correcting voter lists.

She’d brought the boy to this country

And put him to work tending cows.

Small and talkative as a wren,

She hustled around the office,

Warning me never to trust the Russians

Who imprisoned her and myriad

Others.  She sends clothes and food

As she helps the homeless here.

Still she understands that I,

A nuclear freeze advocate,

Primarily dread the holocaust

Star wars would generate.

She makes me chopped liver sandwiches

And gives me good advice.

I bring her cranberry relish.

We share so little and so much.

GRANDMA AND JENNY

We stroll to the park, popping snowberries

Between our fingers as I did as a child

Along the shady driveway of my best friend’s house.

We’re pleased to find ripe Concord grapes

Hiding under the leaves that vine the walls

She loves to walk upon.  In the canvas swing,

Her small bottom fits my hand like a Japanese

Teacup as I lift and send her soaring.

She is old enough to pump herself, once

She gets going.  We rescue a daring toddler

Who has crawled up the slide as a kitten

Climbs a trellis, unable to back down.

Faster than she expects,  Jenny rides the slick

Steel to a sandy landing.  She tries it again.

We follow pigeons to the soda stand and

Pigeons lead us to the beach, speckled at low tide

With perambulating periwinkles. They

Singlefoot among the Irish moss and sea

Lettuce.  Clusters of mussels congregate

Like Portuguese families.  Seven geese

Drift by in convoy, nattering about the

Scarcity of minnows.  Jenny splashes ashore

To dump her bucket onto a sand patty.

The day is opalescent and fragile as fine

Crystal, or the beauties she blows

And catches on her soapbubble ring.

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.

VALENTINE’S DAY

She buys herself carnations in the market,

Pretending they were sent to her by someone

Whose fingers read her body in the dark.

For she who has no lover must invent one.

Flowers have a brief and poignant time

To lure the hummingbird or honeybee

Or luna moth before they wilt on the vine,

Sterile, unfulfilled and incomplete.

THE CURRENT

The third week of September the beach

Is almost empty, but the tepid

Water foams around her ankles

Soothing as a jacuzzi.  Sand

Rushes down between her toes.

Wading out, she lifts one knee

And then the other over the boiling

Suds that try to push her back

To shore until the viscous sea

Transports her on undulating wings.

She strokes out, watching the summer

Scene reel past like the window view

When the airplane taxis down the runway,

Until she discovers she is a passenger

Much too late to cancel her ticket.

DISCARDS

Exquisite crystal starts as potash,

Lead, the whitest sand, and cullet:

(Broken glass from previous batches

That helps the raw ingredients blend.)

Ballooning slantwise on the iron,

Molded with a crooked handle,

Flocked with air bubbles, the glass

Without regret will be pulverized.

Engravers paint with unforgiving

Wheels, smooth and refine designs,

Their hands remembering all the angles.

One slip and the bowl is back in the cullet.

I like to look up at the chandelier

That glorifies the dome of the mall

And think of the hands that did not slip

And the fragments resurrected there.

NUCLEAR THREAT

This solitary passion cuts the core

Out of my apple.

Bloodless lasar surgery burns

A frozen section

Out of my heart.  I stare at the eclipse

Of the sun and go blind.

My tongue is welded to the icy iron

Knocker on your door.

A falling meteor consumes itself

Inside my womb.

My radiation count is high.

Beware of me.

I could be tranquil as the summer seas

If you were here.

Your kiss would turn the strychnine I have drunk

To sparkling burgundy.

EGYPTIAN STATUETTE

(for Jennifer)

The swimming child is as slim

As the stem of a daisy.

Who carved her eased the knife

In a sharp caress

That shaped her slender thighs

And outstretched arms,

Prenubile breasts and tiny

Waist.  Her hair

Is gathered at the side –

A young girl’s style.

Her toes are dancer’s points.

She may have held

A fish between her hands.

The golden foil

Of bracelets and broad collar

Have left their marks.

She was not a commoner.

I want to buy

Her replica and give her

To my granddaughter,

Who only last week swam

To me as straight,

As juvenile

And as ephemeral.