(As only loons can swim, proudly and gracefully)

At the top of the Leishman cup.  I hear their querulous cry

As I raise the cup to my expectant and willing lips,

On the perfectly tapered rim from which no drop will fall

As the curving handle will softly cushion my thumb.

So does the Potter mold a marriage of utility

With art in quiet harmony: the clay then turns to gold.

]]> https://bevtappan.net/2013/12/25/the-cup/feed/ 0 449 https://bevtappan.net/2013/10/25/riverwoods-poems-3/ https://bevtappan.net/2013/10/25/riverwoods-poems-3/#respond Fri, 25 Oct 2013 14:11:37 +0000 http://bevpoems.wordpress.com/?p=274 A SNAPSHOT IN TIME

From the bend of the river

We look back at town,

Our eyes first drawn

To the fall-colored copse

Of maples and oaks

Beyond the boathouse

Of the post-colonial

Academy and below

The cupolas of the

Briefly colonial capitol’s

Church and town hall.

Across the tumbling outflow

From the crumbling Great Dam

Rise mustard-colored walls

Of once-dockside warehouses

A mill run apart from

The towering smokestacks

Of one-time mills.   And

Then a fluttering flag

Marks the brick powder house

Whose contents were fired

At the Battle of Bunker Hill.

So much we see as we

Look back before we

Turn to go down the river.

]]> https://bevtappan.net/2013/10/25/riverwoods-poems-3/feed/ 0 274 https://bevtappan.net/2013/10/01/aspirations/ https://bevtappan.net/2013/10/01/aspirations/#comments Tue, 01 Oct 2013 01:16:23 +0000 http://bevpoems.wordpress.com/?p=117 ASPIRATIONS

How we long to excise peasant fat

As Gloucester fishermen slice the cod,

Lifting flesh cleanly off the bone,

Sculpting ourselves to aristocratic

Skeletons: ballet dancers under the skin.

And wear our heart lines open to view

Like silk-embroidered Persian shields

Or manzanitas whose bronze branches,

Coated with smooth-meshed capillaries,

Have cast off the armor of bark.

We dive into surf to be tossed and  tumbled

By breakers and scoured on washboard sand:

Bottles and granite together giving up

The cutting edge, the obdurate mass,

Emerging as sea glass and luminous gemstones.

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.

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.

]]> https://bevtappan.net/2013/09/07/discards/feed/ 0 43 https://bevtappan.net/1987/06/12/reflections-helgas-sonnet/ https://bevtappan.net/1987/06/12/reflections-helgas-sonnet/#respond Fri, 12 Jun 1987 20:28:00 +0000 https://bevtappan.net/?p=2738 He garlands her with white arbutus in spring
And she is Frigga, Venus of Scandinavia.
Through drowsy summer days he paints
Her flesh pearly and smooth as silken linings
Of conch shells, her long limbs loose in sleep.
But fall diminishes her. A lesser wood nymph
Under a maple leaf, Persephone sliding
Back into earth, she moves away from him.
Against the black winter oak in her army
Cape she deflects his gaze with the icy eyes
Of Freyja, Prussian queen of slaughtered warriors.
Over the years his drybrush explores the ripened
Wheat of her hair, the Viking angles of her features.
The unsmiling mouth at last defeats him.

He no longer plays soccer,
Inhaling the sparse oxygen:
His air fuel- injected
By high-octane hemoglobin.
His chest is now concave.
The serape slopes over shoulders That will carry the village sheep
At Sunday mass to the padre.

His wife has worked up a smile
For her grandson the artist, eyes Squinting in sunlight unshaded
By the upright salad bowl,
A scarlet melon slice,
Crowning her gray hair.
Rolled into a warm collar,
Her blanket comforts old bones.

She keeps her hands busy
Pulling and twisting wool
On a spindle. She often laughs
With neighbors at weekly markets
Buying potatoes and beans or
Sipping a glass of chicha.
She pacifies great grandbabies
with chunks of sugar cane.

Coatless, he bedded under bent boughs,
Warmed by climate-changing campfires.
Emerson missed his invitation to breathe
The star-spangled midnight air.

Thoreau would have leaped onto the ledge
Behind the waterfall to view the moon bow.
“Hang on,” John tells us. “Jam your fist
In the crack. Scrabble for toeholds.

Sway in the storm, rooted in wildness Eat apples and look at the larkspur, ” As his mother advised. Above all,
“Savor the taste of good bread. “

No stifling hollows air for high land lovers.
A hill borne, clear keen wind the chest unbands.
Roots and fruits rot in unstirred low- land damps.
The soul also, closed in, molders and smothers.

Site seekers on the ridge roads envy the views
These many-windowed farm homes gleam to behold
At dusk they eastward gaze to find the gold
Of childhood dreams mirrored in glassy hues.

Cars stop and faces lift
Washed with early morning delight.
Straight up I photograph the basket
Beneath the blossom passing the moon.

In the evening we walk to the village green
To watch a huge purple tulip
Held captive by nylon vines
Rise and descend like an elevator.

Suddenly wind ruffles the petals.
A hefty, passenger dismounts in vain.
The silken tower sways and topples,
Pants and heaves on the ground like a sulky
Elephant. Men shout and tug
Out the last whisper of air.

Then like a tiny spaceship launching
Out of trees, a child’s helium
Balloon escapes into the darkening sky.
We watch until it winks out of sight.