Poems from 2001
REJUVENATION
Whenever you are near
Laughter rises up in me
Like sap in a maple tree.
Whenever you are here
Words tumble out of me
Like coins in a slot machine
When somebody hits the jackpot.
And though I know I ought
To avoid this beckoning eddy
And steer into calmer waters,
Bubbles rise in my champagne
And age no longer trammels me.
Old birds have leave to sing
However short their spring.
OUR DAN
I imagine him out in the pasture blowing snow
To make a space for four shelter goats
And one wool coated sheep to move and browse
Outside their shed and for impatient hens,
Too long cooped in, to strut and hunt and peck.
His Kathy may be knitting that sheep’s wool
Or weaving a shawl on one of her many looms.
And when the spring produces brightly green
Asparagus shoots on all his roadside banks
Dan will be canning them for winter soups.
He must have inherited Grandma Lillie’s genes.
They have no use for lawns. Flowering shrubs,
Rock gardens, raised beds and berry bushes
Fill up their yard. They gather eggs. Sometimes
An aging rooster transforms into a stew.
This distinguished Cisco software engineer
Has retired early to learn to play guitar
And sing his songs at friendly open mics.
When he was young Dan had an attic room
In our three-story, part-Victorian home,
And in the space next to his bedroom he hosted
Cages and cages of guinea pigs, gerbils and hamsters.
He is true to his Tappan family Yorkshire heritage
As shepherds and farmers, good stewards of the planet.
KISMET
As the cribbage game comes to an end
She wonders about Bev’s maiden name.
“What?” she exclaims. “Is that who you are?
I knew you in high school. Your friends were mine.
We often sailed on your husband’s boat.
How did I come to find you here?”
Ah, that is the mystery Kurt Vonnegut
Called “Karma”. Who does Fate arrange
To saunter in and out of our affairs?
As once we ferried down Lake Ullswater
Where Wordsworth saw his daffodils,
We saw, on landing at the ferry dock
A friendly and familiar figure calling out,
A welcome face so far from kith and kin
That last we’d seen afloat on Big Moose Lake,
A fellow paddler in the Adirondacks.
And once on a remote Montana trail
To Cracker Lake in Glacier National Park,
We recognized a couple by a rock
Who greeted us with an astonished hail:
Friends we had made on Elderhostel treks.
And how did you and I manage to meet?
On such encounters do our fortunes rest.
THE OPENING GAME
On the cribbage board your hands,
Your big and bony masculine hands,
Move your pegs, your red pegs,
And my unwomanly sturdy hands
Want my pegs to follow
But the cards do not cooperate.
Instead I tell you how my sled
Slid into the sunken garden.
You tell me your father died young
But yours was a kindly stepfather.
And now my blue pegs come up
To yours and we move in tandem.
ON SWASEY PARKWAY
The seagulls cloud around her
As she tosses the day old bread.
They swoop and dance and flutter,
Ring bills, gray and white breasted,
Clustered around open water
At the shore of the arctic expanse
Of the seldom frozen Squamscott.
She tells me they know her well,
Crowd up when she appears,
Friends with lively welcomes,
After her bakery days.
She once had a dog companion.
Now winged ones keep her company.
I tell her I will bring bread
The next time I come to the waters.
THE WEIGHT OF WINTER
The spruce is still bowed down by snow
Below my north-facing window. Its limbs
Droop sadly, unable to bear the load
Of yesterday’s twenty-four hour storm.
Yet across the road the pines have risen
Branch by branch, shaking off their burdens
As sun and breeze set them free until
They stand tall again, undiminished,
Proud to have weathered another of winter’s
Relentless assaults, green and regal.
I think how much difference a little sunlight,
A little warmth, can make in a life.
COLD COMFORT
I heard that flannel nightgowns
Are no longer to be found
In Target or in Wal-Mart
So I looked to Amazon
And luckily they still offer
In every size and color
A plethora of nighties.
From autumn into spring I
Snuggle into scarlet flannel
Bedecked with caroling cats
Worn over lycra tights.
Nothing there is more comforting
On cold and cheerless nights.
OUR SARAH
On the night you were born the snow had fallen all day,
Drifting, walling us into our house on the hill,
And since we knew that you were on your way
We waited and prayed for the plow which did not come.
As dark approached we thought to ride the toboggan
To meet with a cab on the road at the foot of the Heights.
Of course the plow did finally come in time
But that is how I think of your arrival:
A flight straight into our hearts over whispering white.
And that is why I think you were the child
To try a skateboard, parachute out of a plane,
Ride on your Yamaha into the White Mountains,
Run your half-marathons and keep up
With your fast-peddling husband on mountain bikes
And hundred mile road races, and why
You still keep moving, living life on the fly.
BALD EAGLES
Today my heart leaped up as I
Beheld two monarchs of the air
Circling over White Oak Drive
In search of errant squirrel and hare.
As their black wings sailed on the wind,
The sun lit up white heads and tails.
They made four sweeping rounds until
They headed north for our Great Bay.
The Bay’s their winter habitat
With osprey, loon, black duck and grebe.
We’re glad to have our eagles back:
They awe us with their majesty.
HANGING IN THERE
The flashy flaunting maples
Have had their say and oaks
Now hold their tawny sway:
Orange melanged with bronze
Mingled with hints of green
The eye is pleased to linger on.
And so too do slim beeches
Add ocher notes to the scene,
All joining in fall’s final fling
And in no hurry to let go.
Skiers will find leaves lingering
On branches laced with snow.
A tip of the hat to tenacity!
Why not prolong the final bow?