June 2010

The View from Above: Monhegan House, 7 A.M. – Marjorie Mir

The View from Above: 

Monhegan House, 7 A.M.

Into the small frame, modest landscape

of yellow garden hose,

overturned red barrow,

the settled gray of shingled houses,

early lettuce bedded out,

lilacs at crescendo,  

here she comes, trotting at a pony’s pace,

a young girl in a striped knit cap,

pom-pom bobbing on a string,

not sure where it’s going

but, like a horseman on a runaway,

gamely holding on.

Look again and she is out of view,

too quick for a pencil sketch,

so quick even these few lines

can barely pin her to the page.

Marjorie Mir

_____

Unstrung – Sharon Salmon

UNSTRUNG

Here I am at last, settled on my Island porch

after taking days to leave my life behind:

The over-tended gardens of rosemary, delphinium,

thyme;

The steady clamor of pet ducks and telephones and

mail;

The crawling mind-clutter and crazy flap-clatter of

just too many connections.

I’m fitting torn edges to new here on my Island porch.

Low-flying gulls baptize me with new-wet wings;

My pulse aligns itself with booming salt surf;

My awareness floods with crossbills chittering,

The songs of white-throat, waxwing and warbler,

And scents of rugosa, rockweed, sunned spruce.

This Island porch–my Avalon–it holds me;

Its blessed mists rise to enfold me safe

from encroaching voices now rising, then fading,

down my gravel path.

I’m responding now to simpler calls instead,

like those of stomach, heart and bed.

I’ve come unstrung.

Sharon Salmon