Archive for the ‘Poems’ Category
Poems: “Almost June in New England”
Poems: June 1, 2015
And now it IS JUNE.
Here is a poem Jeanne Gervais sent me the other day–before I got home and could post it.
Almost June in New England
Barefoot on dirt
and warm porch floorboards.
Indoor plants are outside
breathing air, soaking sun.
I saw an ant, a Robin with red breast
all in a morning.
Look at all the light green buds in the trees!
When did that happen? Wasn’t it yesterday we had snow.
Jeanine Gervais
May 26, 2015
Poem: “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost
Poem: May 2015
Jeanine Gervais sent me this Robert Frost poem the other day.
I thought you might enjoy it too.
We in Maine are busy with spring clean-up, which involves fixing walls and picking up brush, so the poem is timely.
MENDING WALL
Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Poems: “I Know Her”
Poems: February 12, 2015
Rose sent me this poem the other day. It had been sent to her.
Thanks, Rose!
I KNOW HER
Someone asked me if I knew you.
I laughed, and said, Ha! That’s funny!
I adore that woman!
She’s blessed, caring, loving, sweet, beautiful, a woman of spirit.
And she’s reading this message right now.
I love her!!
Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning the devil says:
“Oh crap, she’s up!!!!!”
Author Unknown
Poems: “Our Winter of 2015”
Poems: February 4, 2015
I asked Jeanine Gervais, who lives in the northern Boston area, which has also been slammed with snow, to write a poem about winter for the blog.
Note: a “snow farms,” I just learned are the places (like empty parking lots) where cities/towns are putting snow to get it off the streets.
Our Winter of 2015
By Jeanine H. Gervais…inspired by my friend, Louisa P. Enright
It has been snowing for years now
or so it seems
The sky a milky white
warns us
more to come.
Blankets of snow will silence everything.
There is no escape:
TV weathermen with anxious voices reminding us
of record snow fall…school closings…stay off roads
sand and plow trucks have been deployed.
Why do they broadcast TV newsmen
on top of snow mounds,
then too breathless to give reports,
like we need to see snow mounds
we have the real thing.
We have our own snow farms, too.
It takes 15 minutes to put on four layers
the windchill factor minus 17 degrees
to find the mailbox glued shut
but it doesn’t matter because mailmen who deliver in rain, sleet, and snow,
don’t. I miss my mail.
The Boston Globe newspaper tube
a frozen cannoli,
glare ice hides
under baby-powder snow.
I hear the roofs heave,
salt is eating my car.
Friends from Florida and Arizona
send emails
with cute remarks
but that’s okay,
we can take it.
We had to jump off merry-go-rounds,
such a gift.
February 2, 2015
Turkey Tracks: Winter Morning Poem
Turkey Tracks; December 6, 2014
Winter Morning
Awake!
Beyond the window
Crystal blue winter sky.
A line of wild turkeys,
Each picking its way down the hill
Over the still-bright carpet of leaves
And patches of snow.
The dogs emerge from beneath
The bed covers and nuzzle my face.
The rooster calls from the coop.
We are all hungry
On this winter morning.
Louisa Enright
December 2014
Poems: “Desiderata”
Jeanine Gervais, whom I met and enjoyed on board the J&E Riggin windjammer last summer–and we will sail together next summer (July 20-2)as well–along with friend of long-standing June Derr–sent me this copy of “Desiderata.”
Enjoy!
DESIDERATA
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they, too, have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements, as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be careful. Strive to be happy.
[Found in Old Saint Paul’s Church, Baltimore, dated 1692]
