108

Today is the birthday
of my grandmother,
Anne Gilmore Stewart.
Born in 1910, she would have been
108 years old today!


To me, fair friend, you can never be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,
Such seems your beauty still.

(from Shakespeare, sonnet 104)

Along the Mohawk Trail

I wish I could show you

what I saw today--

a modest and orderly orchard,

trees planted like gravestones

on a lazy slope

behind a roadside apple stand,

perfect spring blossoms

glistening in the stately slant

of dinnertime sun

as if to say here’s how to stand

when it’s your turn to go

to seed

Published in Compass Roads: Poems About the Pioneer Valley,

edited by Jane Yolen and published by Straw Dog Writers Guild.

Eating Crow

A protest of crows

met at the Sunoco

sending contingents

across Armory Street

in Springfield

American crows

in a tumult

cawing news

of fumbled rebellion

more ignominy than murder

more sorrow than resistance

Published in Compass Roads: Poems About the Pioneer Valley,

edited by Jane Yolen and published by Straw Dog Writers Guild.

Daybreak Over Chicopee

Hope wears an itchy sweater

with holes in the elbows,

rinses returnable bottles,

finds comfort in the rhythm

of the clothes dryer.

Hope belts out its plea,

hitting the high notes

rounding the Chicopee bend

on 91 South.

Hope turns on a dime

or the ten bucks it thought

was stashed in its wallet.

Hope sighs and slouches,

gives trigger warnings,

sits out arguments.

Hope pretends.

Published in Compass Roads: Poems About the Pioneer Valley,
edited by Jane Yolen and published by Straw Dog Writers Guild.

Compass Roads

Friends, I’m thrilled and honored to tell you that several of my poems are included in this special anthology of poems about the place where I live, Compass Roads: Poems About the Pioneer Valley, edited by the truly amazing Jane Yolen and published by Straw Dog Writers Guild. I was able to read at the Compass Roads book launch in Florence, MA last month, and tonight with a group of featured poets at the Odyssey Bookstore in South Hadley, MA. Wonderful!

I’ll share my poems from the book over the next few days. Here’s the shortest of mine, called “Instant.” Its location is the Oxbow in the Connecticut River not too far from our house. 

Early autumn
in a perfect wash
of Polaroid-light
over the Oxbow,
warm and developed.

Progression

Because the path is rocky

uphill

and complicated

Because it’s hard

to keep flowers alive

let alone children

Because I cannot

tell the difference

between well-intentioned

but bumbling

and counterfeit

Because I was taught

to care for myself

and injury

takes its natural course

downstream

unless diverted

I rest by this river

tending young shoots

making friends

with my ambivalence

Fiddling While Something Burns

Forever

wondering if ever

chills may cease

  feverish spiraling

relaxed as chaos

          plays out

before weary eyes

            weary

be

fore out

    plays chaos

          as relaxed

  spiraling

  feverish

cease may chills

     ever

         if won

          der

          ing

          for

                 ever

Palindromes today in the Imaginary Garden!