Epigraph: I think it’s what you take out of a picture that counts. There’s a residue. An invisible shadow. —Andrew Wyeth, 1917-2009 Andy’s Shadows Christina’s World– In the left corner a woman in a faded pink dress thin black belt sitting twisted in the meadow her back to us black hair sliced through with gray […]

MONHEGAN CACHED The island is always there, imprinted, a fluid, moving backdrop for the planned and daily gestures enacted before it. Miles from the coast, Port Clyde, the Elizabeth Ann, and the ever-changing sea, I read and reread poems written by acolytes who are there in its strong embrace. Their literate, graphic pictures catch in […]

BURNT HEAD, 2009 The surface of the ocean Ups and downs itself, Foams white and stops to sparkle Then does it all again. I peer and blink and peer again, Moving small binoculars, tightening the view. So much foam. So many bumps and downs. “Please be a whale,” I pray to the bumps. “I want […]

A SUMMER AFTERNOON  IN THE BLACK DUCK (In Memory of Mandy) The cat wants in and The dog wants out A summer resident from Boston pops in to catch up The cat slips in but The dog curls up A day tripper from Kittery wants a cappuccino, sweet The dog finds her frisbee The cat […]

ZIMMIE sign by the door said “if you MUST have your sunday times, the boat leaves at noon.” and  he wasn’t ever sweet, that i saw. except in those fine little picture postcards, musta been hundreds of em, took em with a brownie, i heard, when brownies still had the good optics. i once lost […]

Communion I am the tuck of turquoise water. the slap of spray on ocean rocks. I am the boat, the effort of her engines, the voice of the captain pointing out the woman whipped against the cliff by wind, her red cap. I am the trails of bindweed at her feet, the labyrinth of roots. […]

September 5th Summer ebbs out. We look for warmth where we can find it, cat and companion in tide-pools of sun, until chill air stirs us, moves us on, itinerants, following a season’s shoreline, light’s retreating tide as far as time allows. Marjorie Mir

And now the slow slide into autumn: the thinning crickets, the monarchs moving weightless among us like orange angels, the tight-lipped rose hips; the brown curl of aspen leaf, the bikes tossed willy-nilly on the schoolhouse lawn. Even the shadows slide, like blue cloaks about the apple trees. Now the mornings deepen; the meadow glints […]