Category: Tamworth Poems

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.

REQUIEM

The skeletal tree

By the roadside, in the meadow,

That seemed to greet me

When I drove into town,

Its jaggedy branches

Held stoically high

Whatever the chances

Of windstorm or ice,

Gave me courage to face

My ninety-plus years

With a modicum of grace

And a drop of good cheer.

But today it is gone

And I can’t help but mourn.

PINKHAM NOTCH: SEPTEMBER 2015

It hurts my heart when I discern

Our flaming maples brown-edged and sere

At that ebullient time of year

That brings the tourists to our region.

And birches’ withered yellow leaves

Are curled and dropping from the trees

Depressing my spirits seriously.

The Appalachians I have loved,

Famed for fall foliage brilliance,

May not deserve a second glance

Without their scarlet Redcoats.

I’m glad I won’t be here to read

That chapter in their history.

WHITE LAKE

It’s like dipping our paddles in glass

So clear is the water, so pristine the sand.

We watch as reflections glide past:

The pines and the hemlocks in orderly ranks.

Three loons are reflected as well,

The mother and father with chick in between.

Soon they will hear the South call

And singly take flight to the beckoning sea.

A migrating monarch drifts by,

One of an army toward Mexico bound.

And what is our path, you and I?

Do we too respond to the warm siren’s sound?

Or must we accede to the cold,

Settle down in our comforter blanket of snow?

A TIME TO REAP

A waterfall of crab apples spills

From the tree beside our driveway:

Christmas tree ornaments, scarlet balls

Calling out to be jammed or jellied.

“Do not waste us,” they cry.  “Do not leave

Us here hanging to rot unsavored.”

And at church a farm wife rises

To offer her truckful of apples

For cider, for canning, for pies.

This has been a bountiful year.

The branches hang heavy with ripe

Fruit ready to gather, to reap

The summer’s production, a time

For thanksgiving, for counting our blessings.

MOUNTAIN TOP EXPERIENCE

We have clickity clacked to the misty summit

Of New England’s tallest weather-wracked peak,

Cog after cog dropping into their sockets,

I accompanied by my kids and their kids

(Hoping we won’t slide back to our doom).

At the age of ten I first ascended the trail

That ran from the railroad base to the Lake

Of the Clouds to the tip-top and down the Jewel,

My mother in sneakers and black print dress

(The last ascent my parents tried).

But I got to know Mt. Washington well:

Repairing cairns in the Alpine Meadows,

Boulder-hopping down Huntington Ravine,

Traversing to Madison Hut and back,

And watching skiers bolt down Tuckermann’s.

I have grown fond of the ancient rock pile.

It was good to re-visit an old friend. 

PACING

On the first day of August I taste

My first ear of garden-fresh corn.

Not a single sweet kernel is wasted

And soon the whole earful is gone.

But with tears in my eyes I recall

A man who, perceptive and slow,

Savored each delicate morsel

As he nibbled his corn row by row.

He split measured logs for our stove,

Swung his ax in unhurried arcs

And moved our canoe with sure strokes

To reach our next campsite by dark.

Now as I hasten my days,

Willing the hours to pass,

I long for his deliberate pace

And the will not to live life so fast.

ON THE NIGHT OF THE FULL MOON

On the porch the women spoke

Of goddesses and wonder.

Behind the trees the moon arose

In glowing orange splendor.

From north and south and east and west

They called for strength and power

To meet life’s most exacting tests,

Lighten life’s darkest hours.

Then Luna, Goddess of the Moon,

Rose queenly in the night

To grant them her distinctive boon

Of clear and healing light.

She inspired them to journey on

Casting impediments off,

Aspiring to new horizons,

Daring to venture forth.