Category: Reutemann Road Poems

John Muir danced over glaciers. He
Hunkered down to chat with new
Acquaintances among the plant people and
Grieved when they drowned in damned reservoirs.

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. “

The windy hills New England farmers took.
Along with slamming doors and rattling panes
And blasts of blizzards off Laurentian plains,
For a broad and various, free, egregious outlook.

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.

Que paseo! What a ramble!
Six lightning-zigzagged poppies:
Peonies and dahlias waft in gentle Dignity down the valley, silent Between bursts of hot gas.

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.

Homegrown New Hampshire hybrids,
They wheel casually into box seats
At the curbstone, enthroning themselves of glistening red
Motorcycles to enjoy the Fourth of July
Fireworks. Her hair is tightly permed
And slightly gray. His beard boasts
He will live free. Both with vigorous
Bites relish their pizza slices,
Uninhibited by diet or fitness prescriptions.

She leans down to flick off
An invisible speck from the chrome pedal,
Admiring her windshield and rearview mirrors.
As magnesium mortars detonate in rainbow
Cascades, two comrade cyclists arrive
And lift off helmets from snow white hair.
From the grass where we sit, a toddler
Runs to hug her cruising grandparents.

Creatures of the bottom of the sky:
Lobsters crawling the floor
Of an ocean of air remembering
Foetal seas, ancestral
Swimmers, tidal waves
Towering , like cliffs before
Hurling us landward, we
Can appreciate potential force:

The eye of the hurricane, redwoods
Poised to topple, hovering
Tornadoes, smoking volcanos or
These two hundred feet
Of water turned to blue
Crystals being crunched by crampons,
Impaled by pitons, and looped
With nylon spider webs.

Immobile marble columns
of water vaulted by cobalt with
Cloudships jetting overhead:
We crouch below them soft
In our unshelled flesh on rocks
April torrents will drown
Pausing to film that image:
The buddha face of god.

The intersection coming into view
Is a slow motion silent
Moving picture. A fountain
Of glass showers the road
From a front headlight bounced
Off the rear bumper of a car
That seems to have overshot the stop sign.

Trying to comprehend we watch
A hit and run scenario
Unwind. The wavering offender,
Turn signal still blinking,
Like a mechanized rabbit nipped
By a racetrack greyhound, disappears.

What will Jessica Fletcher
Think of us for not memorizing
The license plate? Meanwhile,
The confused victim sits
Stalled on the state highway.
A flash flood of beach
Traffic surges into sight.

But help, we note, is at hand.
Two women wearing aprons
Run from the firehouse kitchen.
One, like a French gendarme
In the the Place de la Concorde, tames
Stampeding vehicles to a snail’s pace.

The other wields a pushbroom.
As swiftly as a hockey forward
Dribbling the puck for a goal,
She herds the broken glass
To the roadside, marshalling
Into her parade the still dazed
Driver. At last we make
Our move, saluting the resduers
For speed and savoir faire.

Tiny volcanoes of citarette stubs puff
In our faces. The saxophone player
Wears a toupee. Everyone’s hair is
Or would be gray if…
The gifts, a roll-up trailer hose and cord,
Will soon be snaking in
And out from Florida to Texas to LA.
Gargantuan prime ribs
Alarm us. The salad is nondescript. A cynical
Waitress deals out
Slabs of gluey supermarket ice cream.
Bubbles of jovial laughter
Burst above beer bottles. Smiles stretch
Tight from cheek to cheek.
On the dance floor calves still shapely
Fox trot gracefully but almost
Lose control rocking on jitterbug curves
After the plaques and fare-
You wells, the moon blows us home
Like shad on the spring tide.