Category: Riverwoods Poems

FALLING LEAVES

They lift and pirouette in the pulsing breeze,

These brown and desiccated maple leaves,

Dancing and leaping and twisting, a phantom crowd,

Surrounding me and my car in a thickening cloud.

They seem to have some message they want to convey;

They seem to want me to stop while they have their say.

I will slow my pace but I will not come to a halt,

Whatever these autumn messengers foretell.

Bare branches offer an unimpeded view

Allowing the splendor of sunsets to come through.

Snow-dusted branches also have their charm:

Who strides on snowshoes easily keeps warm.

At any time of the year I’ll keep journeying.

The day has not yet come for tamely sitting.

THE ECLIPSE

Three oldsters sit on a wall to watch

The super moon’s eclipse, a sight

They will not live to see again.

The stars shine faint in the ebony night

As a shadow darkens the moon’s left rim.

This moon that bathes our faces with light

And spotlights the jet plane streaking west

In olden times would have filled with fright

Our primitive ancestors’ childish hearts.

A monstrous mouth they would have thought

Was eating their beacon amidst the gloom.

It is not without some dread we watch

The red cloak spread across the moon.

When barely a sliver of silver shows

We rise and repair to our separate quarters.

The next night we welcome the cheering glow

Of an only slightly diminished goddess

Who yet protects us from the dark.

SEPTEMBER MORNING ON THE EXETER

In the river today the trees

Mirror themselves.  As we paddle

Our kayaks we see double:

Two trunks, two thatches of branches,

Two patches of reeds, two blossoms

Of pickerel weed, two bushes

Of orange-bespotted jewelweed,

Two bare and barren wood-peckered

Skeletal hulks with bony limbs.

From the dark woods a hoot owl

Invites us to come on in, come on in.

Bluejays flit across our bows.

Wild ducks practice flight patterns.

The heron is no longer present.

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

Bits and pieces, odds and ends,

The Found Art sculptor rescues them

From long discarded bowling pins

Or Chinese combs or beaded etuis.

Just so from stardust, we are told,

From random protons and electrons,

Were fashioned creatures new and old

As chance and whimsy brought them forward 

Jigsaw puzzles, each of us,

Put together by Found Art,

Disassembled for new purpose,

Recreated part by part.

THERE IS A TIDE

The tide was high when we put in

At Chapman’s Landing halfway down

The Squamscott, and there was no wind.

We thought the fisherman’s advice was sound

To head downstream toward the Great Bay

So when the tide began to ebb

We’d be assisted on our way.

We watched the heron overhead,

Admired the osprey nest on shore

And came in sight of the railroad bridge

Through which the current was moving more

Forcefully on its leading edge.

While turning around to look behind

One paddler broadsided the flow

And we were suddenly shocked to find

That she was swimming outside her boat,

Her kayak firmly pinned in place

Against two randomly rooted posts,

Nailed by the current’s relentless pace,

Weighed down by the water’s steady flow.

Then it was that we recognized

What tidal power held  us fast,

That there would be no compromise

Until we reached the sea at last.

TODAY’S KAYAK

As we put in our three boats

We feel the first few drops.

It is too warm for raincoats

So we push brashly off.

Across the lily-padded cove

A hectored heron flies

Harassed by a persistent crow

With persecution on his mind.

The large dark cloud above us

Then looses its watery freight

And soon has sprinkled upon us,

Refreshing on this hot day.

Undaunted, we paddle onward

Along the reedy marsh

Hearing children’s voices behind us

From the camp whose beach we passed.

At the island we turn back landward.

Damp but happy we’ll head homeward.

IN ABSENTIA

The first Monday in May

Slid off the calendar.

It mingled into Tuesday,

Dissolved in thin air.

The dentist could not reach me.

He wondered where I was.

It was an anniversary,

A day of grief and loss.

I could not bear to re-live

The day my sweetheart died.

There’s nothing that I would not give

To have him by my side.

ON THE FIRST DAY OF APRIL

As they circle and soar

In wide leisurely glides

The western sun silvers

Their wings’ undersides:

Four ebony vultures

On a springtime patrol

Back from the southlands

To clean up our roads

While a pale full moon

On the eastern horizon

Rises to bestow

A benevolent benison

And at the small pond

Two redwings chatter

To welcome the emergence

Of ice-free water.

ON THE LAST DAY OF MARCH

The wind has wielded a brush and comb

To tease the clouds in all directions

Extracting fragile transparent film,

Wafting it over an azure canvas.

Stubborn diminishing drifts of snow

Persist in sullen sordid ranks

Along the gravel encrusted roads,

Reluctant to cede their prominent place

However much we wish them gone.

Meanwhile the red capped finches have come

To check out the top of my tall blue spruce

The site of their last year’s nest and brood,

And the first two turkey vultures arrive

To circle above the neighborhood:

I will lift up mine eyes for signs of spring.

TRANSITION

Here on the cusp of spring

The foxy Prince of Darkness

Will retreat to his lonesome lair

Leaving the fair Persephone

To soften the icy winds

And water the snowbanks down.

March has come in like a lion

And is leaving like T Rex.

Polar glaciers dissolve:

The cold descends to us.

We cheer to see the grass

Emerge from rotting snow.

The jay and the chickadee lisp

Their piece to potential mates.

But Persephone will do well

To free us from winter’s clutch.

The light at the end of the tunnel

MAY be the summer’s sun

And Persephone MAY return

To her darksome winter home.