Poems from 2001
KARMA
I never planned a future.
I never envisioned a life.
A series of doors opened up.
Like Alice I scurried through them:
Accepted college tuition,
In Wyoming encountered a husband,
Spent two years in Lima, Peru,
Helped to erect two houses,
Taught English classes and reading,
Had five outstanding offspring
Who now keep an eye on me.
I did not pursue my destiny.
My star led me on like the magi.
A MORNING MISSION
This morning a smoking sea
Of fog enveloped my friend’s
Adirondack lake cottage.
The straggly tips of lonesome
Pines poked out of the mist.
Through glassy water we paddled
To reach a secluded cove.
My friend was on a mission:
She carried her cat’s ashes
To lie in a pristine place
Among the wild inhabitants
Close to the sacred stone
Marking her son’s grave.
LOOK TO THE HILLS
I was feeling blue.
I was feeling glum.
My big 9-0 birthday
Had recently come and gone.
The years that were ahead
Suddenly looked too few.
I headed for the hills
For a more uplifting view
But the hills were wrapped in mists.
And yet the morning after,
Patches of sky shone through.
I recalled a lyric line:
“I’m gonna live until I die.”
And I felt my spirits rise.
THE ART OF THE POEM
Oh I could probably pen
The enigmatic page:
“In the shattered mirror
At the window I see crows…”
Op Art is all the rage.
As every critic knows,
Poetry in plain style
Is rather juvenile.
But I would sooner share
The loon song on the lake
Or a stand of birches,
One moment that may make
Its mark on the sands of time
In rhythm and in rhyme.
FAMILY REUNION
On the river bank
I look for you
Where the poplars bend
And our green canoe
Hangs under the eave
Of the little shed.
On the grassy heights
Of old battlefields
Where the purple knotweed
Now invades
I trace the trails
Where we once skied.
As your daughters voice
Old family songs
My heart responds:
I sing along.
ON A SUMMER EVENING
Atop the Exeter town hall
Our Lady of Justice
Back-lighted by sunset
Holds high her scales
And weighs the brassy
Marching strains
Of the Exeter town band
As we in our lawn chairs
Watch the frisking children
And smell the popcorn.
A pair of Mexican Hairless
Dogs parade by.
The band segues
Into a medley of waltzes.
ON DEPARTING
We should leave this life
In a burst of glory
Like a Roman candle
Or a red maple in autumn.
On fire is the way to go,
Then a handful of ashes
In the children’s flower beds.
No grieving over
Goldengrove unleaving
But the promise of spring
Buds unfolding.
THOUGHTS IN THE NEWFIELDS WORD BARN
At Open Mikes
The spoken word
Is often heard, but
What of the unspoken word
The forgotten word
The belated word
The word of advice
The word of wisdom
The word of caution
In the Beginning
Was the Word.
Who will have
The last word?
Who will hear
Our last word?
A PASSING THOUGHT
Flesh of my flesh
(As well as their father’s)
Bone of my bone
(Their father’s too)
How proud they make us
These five fine siblings,
Spouses and offspring.
We are transmuted
Translated to new
And complex persons.
What more do we ask
Than to have a share
In this chain of lifetimes
On our planet Earth.
AT THE ACADEMY CONCERT
Last night we heard Beethoven’s
“War and Peace” sonata
(Or so I choose to call it):
Brief interludes of harmony
Give way to the clash of arms.
And then the “Blitzkrieg Waltz”
(Though he himself denies it):
The dimly heard Valse by Ravel
Drowned out by war’s alarums.
It seems this new generation
Of promising high school students
Does not expect peace in their time.
And those of us in our nineties
Suspect that they are right.
A GLADSOME TIME
Horse chestnuts lift white candles to the sky
A paean of celebration to the season.
Tri-colored lilacs bless us passersby
Censing their fragrance as they gently lean.
May burgeoning on every hand is seen.
Back roads are edged with phalanxes of phlox:
Mauve and pink and white they gladden the eye.
In sheltered woodlands dogwoods shyly flock
With mountain laurels blushing near the ground.
Old fashioned bleeding hearts our yards festoon
And lilies of the valley cluster round
Our feet as we with gratitude proceed
To make our way through one more riotous spring
Renewed, uplifted, consciously thanksgiving.
THE CCRC COFFEE CIRCLE
The time has come, the oldsters said,
To talk of many things:
Of presidential candidates
And whether it will rain,
Of Bobcats scooping up the yard
And the installation of drains,
Of who is in the nursing lodge
And the state of someone’s brains.
The three percent rise in annual fees
Is always food for thought.
Whoever came up with that idea
In our good books is not.
By this time the muffins are all gone
And the coffee’s no longer hot.