All poems
BEARING UP
Arising, I open the blinds
And am blinded by oceans of white
Shrouding each tree trunk and limb,
Walkway, driveway and lawn,
Ruthlessly wet and stickily
Clinging to cars and roofs.
Hunch-shouldered firs and spruce
Bow to the merciless weight.
“Too much,” I think. “There can be
Too much of any good thing.”
But here in New England we
Have learned to survive like the trees:
Hunker down, put up with and wait
For the sun to revive us again.
ON GROWING OLD
Our latter years can be as gray
As many a tedious winter day.
The hours can be as hard to fill
As Sisyphus pushing a rock uphill.
We’ve learned what it is to love and lose.
To live this long we did not choose.
Some days it’s hard to get out of bed
And fill the empty time ahead.
On other days the sun will throw
A pink and orange sunset glow
Across the gray and gloomy skies
And we will come to realize
That like Frost’s snow-dispatching jay
Delight can come at the end of the day.
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.
THE JACKET
It hangs in the closet
A comfort to see
And helps me remember
His arms around me.
There’s a faint smell of campfires
In the soft fibrous wool.
He loved to chop kindling
When evenings were cool.
That brown checkered topper
I sometimes put on.
It feels like reliving
Sweet days that are gone.
I can see it ahead
On a cross-country trail
Or a snowshoeing path
On the old Battlefield.
I’ll never discard it,
His lumberman’s jacket.
SNOW DAY
Thankful for shelter,
I watch the snow
Falling on spruces,
Coating the patio
Where pecking away
Are three ebony crows
After yesterday’s scraps
Which are blanketed now.
Thankful to have
No place to go
No errands to run
No rows to hoe.
Grateful for warmth
And neighbors I know.
COMPLIANCE
(Grandma Lillie)
White and wispy as spun sugar, her hair
Is still damp from the rollers. Our arrival
Has taken her by surprise. She sits on her porch
In the only aluminum chair left, her doll
Legs dangling. Gravity has collapsed her
One inch with each calcium-starved disk.
She says she has no neck and cannot wear
The gemstone pendants we’ve given her.
She hadn’t thought it would come to this,
Her porch bare of philodendron, now
Twisting heart=shaped leaves at the neighbor’s.
Her sister says the nursing home is pleasant.
She doesn’t know what to expect. She’ll take
An African violet with her and a rocking
Chair. She’ll try to bloom where she is
Planted. Her voice is thin as a harpsichord note.
SONNET TO THE FIRST SNOWFALL
Behind her wrinkled monkey face
An apple-cheeked lass still smiles
At the wintry woods as a welcoming place:
The trails ahead beckon for miles.
But the creaky old back refuses to bend
To strap on the cross-country skis.
It’s just as well. Two turkeys send
Their calls from neighboring pine trees.
The winterberries wink red in the snow.
Ahead are the tracks of a snowshoe hare.
Her winter boots will suffice, she knows,
For a brief but rewarding excursion there
Where the red squirrels’ litter will be found
And many other treasures abound.
OUTLOOKS
Not every opening
Is a crevasse
A crack in the ice
An earthquake fissure
Or avalanche launcher.
There are breaks in the clouds
Job opportunities
A sermon’s first words
Clearings in forests
And strokes of good luck.
Whether the gate be
Elysian or Stygian
Depends on whether
The eye looks up
Or keeps to the ground.
THE CHOICE
In autumn the golden willow weeps
While saffron leaves still cling to the beech.
In a lengthening line we’ve come to stand
For the water of life in an arid land.
As wildfires rage in southern climes
As aquifers shrink, as wells go dry
We hold our protest signs up high.
Cars honk approval as they go by.
It’s oil or water: they do not mix.
In the end the choice comes down to this:
We’ll keep the petrol in the ground
Or life on earth will no longer be found.
This morning black ice, a dusting of white
Remind us of winter’s implacable might.
WAKE UP CALLS
I heard the crows; their raucous cries
Awoke me from a restless bed.
I did not know what rude surprise
Their harsh insistence might portend.
The day was sunlit, clear and cold.
I saw no reason for alarm,
But on my neighbor’s patio
The usual bread for birds was gone.
And then it was I understood
What their complaints had been about.
No imminent evil was foretold,
Just calls to send their vittles out.
So let it be with all alarms:
False, and signaling no harm.
WHITE MOUNTAIN ART
The artists stayed in grand hotels
Leaving in payment for their keep
Saleable oils or watercolors
Where light flickers through lacy leaves
Bounces off rocks and sheep or cows
Gleams on waterfalls and soars
All unconfined to the mountaintops.
Always something catches the eye
In the foreground – a red coat or a dog.
The trees are finely drawn and shadowed.
You can tell weather by the clouds
In skies of varied blues and grays.
These pictures are easy to live with.
Small as postcards or too big to hang
On parlor walls, they hide themselves
Murky with dust in farmhouse auctions.
Today we point the lens at the mountain:
Snow flocks the firs on high ridges.
The alabaster peaks are carved
Chrystal sharp by the cold blue air.
Among the hardwoods a smoldering fire
Of fall foliage lingers – beech,
Birch and the last of the sugar maples.
Catching the eye in the foreground, framed
By telephone poles, lettered in gold
Is the sign of the Up Country Saloon.
A SHOW OF COLORS
At first we thought the lengthy drought
Would quench our usual fires of fall
And we would enter winter without
Our annual foliage spectacle,
For many of our trees went brown
As summer neared its torpid end
And leaves dropped serely on the ground.
What else could this sad sight portend?
Some say that trees can communicate
By underground telegraphic systems.
Perhaps they sent word to their forest mates
That the time had come to show resistance.
So our maples were able to concentrate,
Condense their chromosomes and atoms
And flare up in a blinding last display
Of death-defying radiant patterns.