BLUEBERRY HILL Out of That Squalid City Oh, we share that dream. You were a young lady in a linen dress growing up in light, white-washed days in Maine, a tom- boy, probably; closer somehow to earth and sea, left behind. And I, wanting to be out of this squalid city, there; and seeing in […]

RIPENING Nothing but time-when it is time- can make the blueberries ripe, their skins plush as lips, deeply filled with the colors of bruise and breath and bliss: Nothing can rush this, this slow swell  of growth, this lush and lavish splash of fruit, this bloom and blush and burst. You can’t feed it anything […]

DINNER AT SIX, MONHEGAN HOUSE It became a memorable first gathering. Monhegan the meeting place, the group of four, old friends and new, together. A toast to making acquaintances and the good fortune of being on island. The time honored ritual of breaking bread, as conversation and wine flow through the evening. With fond memories, […]

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 […]

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 […]

THAT SEA           I first beheld the sea when I was twen- ty two, immediately knelt to drink to taste, first-hand, if it were really salt (you never know–the stories could’ve lied) first chance to dream beyond the blue hori- zon’s edge, expand a midwest prairie’s view to something grander: waves […]

THE ELIZABETH ANN The rolling, rocking waves beat at the solid hulled boat with their timed sun struck force. My grin of pleasure broke bright as white caps as the slow, grinding movement thrust the boatload of tourists to the island. Spray and gulls, buoys and low, small breasted islands blend on the plexiglass window […]

ICE POND                       1 In early morning when the sun lights up last night’s beads of dew, all the way to the pond I walk through a show of spiders’ lacey art hanging from branches of the spruce.           2 Once […]

ISLAND COTTAGE for Frances Vaughan Over the years and many visits, since no one was at home, imagination was my entry, allowed me morning coffee  on the small front deck, the privilege of touching down lightly, lingering there. Today an invitation came from the poet whose cottage it happens to be. Inside, it is trig […]

“SOME DAY I WILL BUILD HERE” – Lucia Weinhardt When I first found it years ago, this ramshackle affair was just barely a footprint on a sweet and lonely piece of land not too far from the back side’s ever-alluring edge. Nestled amongst the low-lying scrub and the skeletal bones of the once burnt and […]

RETURN TO THE SUMMER HOUSE Air before rain, air so sweet I weep my grandmother’s tears as I open  each window             of the             closed             house, remembering the scent of water in the air, and her hair down […]

  ON GULL ROCK               A heedless deity,         all-powerful and oblivious, the ocean grants sea-glass jewels to barefoot children,         but is not generous. It drowns sailors and steals their ships,         but is not malicious. It soothes broken […]

FOUR HAIKU FOR SPRING Why these thoughts of spring? Is it the smell of the air, the light on the snow? *** For spring gardening, to shake out the dried loam from last fall’s shoes. *** Clear weather at last! The gray hills are green again & five miles nearer. *** He lies in the […]

                         Ornithology Sophocles calls birdwatching a hallmark of men; it jostles beside language, law, ethics, navigation. What could he have meant? Augury? Love of elusive difference? The pagan proclivity for fauna? The zoomorphy of myth? I surmise too the power of naming, Eve dreaming in […]

 OVERHEARD NEAR THE SEAL LEDGES                 it grieves me somber, seeing there are those among the Folk who have forgotten how to speak, to sing, whose children will not know the heady joy of slipping out of skin and dancing on the land in mortal guise it grieves […]

SPRING COMES SLOWLY Spring comes slowly in these parts ~            Like an old woman in the produce aisle,            hungry for new asparagus and fiddleheads            suspicious of bright strawberries            too soon, too soon Spring comes slowly […]

THE FIRST LONG NAP I’VE  HAD IN YEARS On the third floor of the Island Inn, a room no larger than a minute, the small bed filling the room, I lay down. White walls, the white of steamed milk, whiter trim on the window, its white shade half-closed, half-closed white curtain rippling. Me on the […]

A GAELIC BLESSING Deep peace of the running wave to you. Deep peace of the flowing air to you. Deep peace of the quiet earth to you. Deep peace of the shining stars to you. Deep peace of the gentle night to you. Moon and stars pour their healing light on you.  Deep peace of […]

IN THIS ROOM     Waking to the peace of an untethered                white light in the tiny room                      I’ll call my own for this                              […]