All poems
LUPIN LAND
They call you Iceland, but to me,
You are the land of the light-flecked lupins
Lapping liquidly up from the sea,
Flowing like lava on slopes and banks,
Softening the once-rough lava beds,
Cooling the once-hot thermal earths,
Injecting beneficent nitrogen,
Fixating fine and friable soils.
Their petals are blue as the glacial flows,
Tinged with the white of glacial ice.
Like the ancient Norse, they’ve arrived to stay.
They’ll hold their ground, come what may.
RIVERSIDE LILACS
Lilac’s sweet scent
And the Bearcamp’s sluicing song
Give my heart ease
Now that you are gone.
Give my heart ease,
But do not quell the pain
Of knowing that I’ll never
Walk with you again
Except in memory’s bittersweet
Though comforting afterglow:
The luminous husk of happiness
My heart will now know.
(June, 2014)
May brings the seedlings: parsley, sage
Thyme and rosemary frail and green,
Eggs of all sizes, turkey to quail,
Ruby red radishes crunchy and sweet,
The wild curled fronds of fiddlehead ferns,
Lambs’ quarters, dandelion leaves.
For rhubarb’s tangy sauce we yearn,
New peas, garlic, onions, chives.
Summer’s bounty is succulent corn,
Heritage tomatoes and summer squash.
Young carrots, beets and broccoli are borne
To the growing family’s midday repast.
New potatoes, yams and turnips appear.
With the sweetness of berries the meal is crowned
Before the table is finally cleared,
The dishes washed, the family gone.
The produce of fall is all about
Preparing for frost: sweet or hard cider,
Local beer, ales and stout,
Grapes and berries transmuted to wines.
Ripened root vegetables are stored.
Preserves, pickles and relishes keep
The taste of summer in our mouths
Throughout the winter’s long cold sleep.
WAKE UP CALL
Death is the surprise
Life springs on us
When we are not looking.
Even when we see it coming,
We’re never ready.
It takes us unawares.
Suddenly our dear one
Is not here,
Is not there,
Is nowhere.
Death does not care.
We care.
OUR BLACKBERRY YEAR
One year the blackberry blooms
Burgeoned so fulsome and rank,
With the weight of their fragrant fruit
The bushes bowed and bent.
We picked our fingers black
And filled our freezer full,
Then had to refer to a book
On concocting blackberry cordial.
This potent purple brew,
The perfect campfire quaff,
We transported in our canoe
For a day’s end toast and laugh.
LEAVE TAKING
The week before you left,
The ghost pear bloomed
Beyond our window. Perhaps
It beckoned to you, since
You could no longer pack
Your wetbag for the Allegash,
Guide us down the Chase Rips,
Or gaze at the Long Lake rainbow.
It pleasures me to think
That you are chasing rainbows.
(RiverWoods poems: May 11, 2014)
Was it in the Sixties that I first heard
The doorbell ring on the first of May
And found your wildflowers at the door
Of that hillside house your father girded
With cedar logs and sturdy fieldstones
To keep our family sound and safe?
Fifty years later your “Free Spirit”
Roses arrive (I love the concept)
At my apartment, accompanied
By purple and orange tulips and green
Cymbidium orchids, as always on the First
Day of May, their Andean-colored cheer
Brightening up a rainy day
And warming my heart with a memory.
SPRING CLEANING
April twenty-six has been proclaimed
As Roadside Litter Cleanup Day:
Volunteer crews have arrived to obey.
Good housekeepers would feel ashamed
Not to be cleaning out cupboards today.
Lawnkeepers are raking off dead leaves,
Gardeners are turning up fresh soil,
While everyone else in the Northeast heaves
A sigh of relief that April rains
Have washed the dirty snow away.
THE COLOR YELLOW
Forsythia’s buttery bursts
Glow in the cloudy gray
April rain, and willows’
Key lime fingers sway
In the watery atmosphere.
I’m on my outbound way,
Gladdened by hosts of daffodil
Suns on a dismal day.
A BACKWARD GLANCE
From my car radio come the slow sweet strains
Of Mozart’s First Horn Concerto, and I am
Suddenly transported into that Victorian room
Where we made music, seated on the piano stool,
Hands on the black and white keys, my girl
Standing beside me easing the smooth tones
Out of her French horn, and I am aswirl
In waves of nostalgia, longing for that ample home,
Those five ripening minds, their patient Dad.
We did not know what signal bliss we shared.
We hurried forward through a sacred time
That my heart now cries out to live again.
(April 2014)
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)
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
In April, driving north on Route Sixteen,
You top a hill just south of Ossipee
And in your face arise the peaks and flanks
Of Washington and the Presidential Range.
Fiercely white, they reign over the horizon,
An awesome sight you want to keep your eyes on.
But you go on and Chocorua hoves into view,
Clothed with his Sisters in somewhat mottled hues,
And they call out for climbing, but you know
The trails will still be treacherous with snow.
Black ice will subtly coat the shaded rocks,
And slow going may find you still on top
When shadows coalesce around your feet,
The sun beating an all-too-fast retreat.
Some shining prospects should be kept in sight
Until the time for venturing is just right.
(April 2014)