Contents

40 Summers

Literary Connections

And one day you remember

What else can we do but love it

When I go home again

The story of us

Writer in residence

Words

October

One Dream at a Time

everything

Sears catalog

Private Losses

In Vermont

This much I know

Summer
The World is Too Much
Living Western; For Now
That Day

40 summers

eight summers at the Jersey Shore

one summer in the Rocky Mountains and western National Parks
fifteen summers on the rocky, New England coast

five summers in the northeast woods

one summer in Nova Scotia with a man I loved

ten summers in ski towns.

Literary Connections

Second grade Plattsburgh, New York

Mrs. Farrah teaches us to read without moving our lips at Oak St School
I am one of the kids who can do it.

Fifth grade, Mr. Oliver reads Harriet the Spy to the class.
After school I read Little House on the Prairie.

In the middle of Eighth Grade my family moves to Rye New Hampshire.
Ms. Balz teaches me grammar; I learn the difference between your and you’re.

In Tenth grade I read Dreiser in English class and fall in love with literature.
I read Welty and Cather and imagine being western.

I read How Green is My Valley
Because I like the name.
I learn, you can go back and have what you like if you remember it well enough

In Twelfth grade Diane and I change the lyrics to a Simon and Garfunkel song
As we ride a Greyhound bus to New York City.
I meet my soul mate and we read Gone With the Wind on stormy winter evenings,
We meet in the library, and talk about our books,
He shows me his world of nature and hiking,
Of Love
We go to Boston, the computer museum, the White Mountains, Prom and
Separate

After high school I watch The Outsiders,
Soda Pop quotes Robert Frost Nothing Gold can stay
during a sunset
I read more Frost, he says that my life is a pursuit of a pursuit forever
And begin to understand interminable longing.

I travel to Denver, Philadelphia, Boise, Portland, Fairbanks, and Missoula
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paris, London, Geneva

Listening to Jackson Browne sing about maps and angels
you've had to hide sometimes, but now you're all right
and start to believe it

Allison and I listen to Lawrence Ferlinghetti at Philips Exeter Academy
It is the first time I hear a poem spoken by its writer
we sneak into his private receptions
This is the first time I see a real poet, up close.

I read Walker, Lessing
I’m searching for my mother’s gardens, too
I try to write my Golden Notebooks.

I remember a line from a book that spoke to me once
you can go back and have what you like if you remember it well enough

I remember
and what I remember becomes a story
and a poem, and a book.

And one day you remember

Can one person really make you forget

all past disappointments,
past hurts?

and then one day, while walking
in a copper landscape
you realize
you have forgotten everything

Because the day is sweet, perfect,
filled with love.

and you become thankful for delayed snow storms
and yet-to-be-filled promises
as the yellow aspen leaves crunch, crunch
under four boots and twelve paws.

What else can we do but love it

Granby, Colorado

Sprawled under the desk
I feel her breath on my toes
Blond tail curls under her rear legs.

wanders to the other side of the room
to watch me by the door,  

head perks to attention to the rumbling and roaring
of the sky opening up

glad for the rains
that soak the tinder beetle-killed lodgepole

delays fires that
will eventually come.

fires that will destroy the forest and trails where
we walk
every day

Lodgepole pine fill the view from this desk
accepting the red, brown landscape

What else can I do but love it

the storms pass and the tail
bang, bangs against the wall
eager eyes look at me from my knees
as we head out
raindrops on a metal roof
clang, clang

When I Go Home Again

Previously published in Clapboard House Review 2010

When I go home again
I go to the places that have stayed the same
the rocky coast of New Hampshire,
where there is sometimes sand
and homes filled with children and rules

the wooden kitchen table
in summer
feels, damp with east coast humidity

the kitchen desk filled with photos and cards
a Frost poem-card about swinging from branches
one could do worse than be a swinger of branches

My old room with the single bed removed,
now home to a model railroad

I take in the smells
hear Mom and Dad repeat their skit
I didn’t call you for dinner yet
What a bummer dinner isn’t ready yet

I write this in the Colorado aridity
remembering humidity and humor
my first home

and no matter what age appears on forms
or spoken when asked
I still need her okay, her approval.

every day,
her love matters.

The Story of Us

Come to me

we will play king of the island
and eat meatball subs
unless you are vegetarian now

remember Lafayette, Whiteface
where you showed me your world

And I will tell you the story of us
sitting on the beach
watching the storm come in
and how we ran,
at the very last minute
to the car
and got soaked

Will you come
stay with me?

Here.

Writer in Residence

with a flick of a gloved hand

a dusting of snow sprays off the green picnic table
with a view of the craggy peaks

at this movement becoming writer in residence on top of East Peak

a new tradition for the holidays
a hike with dogs
pen, paper
to commemorate a tradition
to give thanks

watching the landscape
of red lodgepole pines
Fraser River Canyon
Continental Divide
of sage
and wildflowers
all buried under snow

while sitting atop the world,

Words

forgetting words is easy 

when you go to work
the post office
the grocery store

but just the other day
they saved me
Martin Eden
Angle of Repose
Their Eyes Were Watching God

saved me.

October

brown oval leaves

hand shaped rocks with moss
signs of glaciers moving through
years ago

twigs, logs
scattered
from human intrusion
worsened by snowmobile, ski
trails

winter arrives
soon
signaling the last Maine winter
for me

dogs bound over alphabet trees 

canadian geese fly high below apostrophe clouds
a squirrel sits at attention

One Dream at a Time

One dream at a time

but wanting them all
patience is no friend

He has dreams too
and I see them in his eyes
How they feed him

Can you feel my dreams?
I want to speak of them
but do not

Can you see
the possibilities
I want to ask
as I bury my head in his shoulder

this face,
I turn up to you,
no one else on earth,
has ever seen. 

everything

rustling aspen leaves in the wind

wake me from deep, late waking sleep

the dream is still with me

I move closer
to the one
next to me
who has chosen
me.

I needed him this morning
next to me, and he was there
and wanted to be

these are not small matters,
they mean everything.

Sears catalog

The furniture of my future life 

was in the Sears catalog

and built in Nike shoe boxes
dioramas of perfection

no cinder block bookshelves
no metal pipes, wood for a desk.

In this future there were flowery drapes, a pine desk
beds with curtains and four posts
dish sets matched the flour container

towels matched bed linen
toothbrush holder matched soap pump

All my dreams matched perfectly

Today
nothing matches,
no flowers, no pine

Just landscape

Private Losses

When do you start
to forget the losses
you know
the losses that sustain you,
the losses that hold the bitterness
of the life you may have had
if everything worked out
as hoped

Hope

lost hope
through years of solitude

not bad years

well, maybe one,
when he said
you haven’t laughed in a long time

losses pass
as the sun rises over the divide

Can you name your private losses?

I can
but won’t
for they don’t matter

now.

In Vermont

On the day I wanted to be an artist
I walked into a poetry reading
at a small Rutland bookstore

a woman with long, gray hair
rings and earrings
reading a poem
she said,

I carry my life like a backpack.

This Much I Know

Some dreams just don’t come true

but still, you keep trying
thinking of the one way ticket back

and leaving it all behind