SENSING MONHEGAN With eyes closed I sense our approach seas churn beneath and the boat nears the hidden harbor ensconsed behind Manana’s looming cloak I sense her enormity on the right as we slip past, smutty nose off to portside the dock is near we come clumping up to the boards and hit home with […]

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES IN BLACK AND WHITE This old black and white photo has ignited my imagination, to thoughts racing, of island children, home grown, and temporarily transplanted, to Summer seasons long ago. There they sit, unaware they have taken root in the rich field of Time that will grow the most cherished memories of childhood. […]

The Heralding The two of them came running in from somewhere off the sand And said together, a voice that spoke for both of them. “There’s a boat of glass tipped down there on the tide and No one is in sight, except the two of us; the sun is shining Through the stern, the […]

DID MOTHERS KNOW? Did mothers know about the schemes of children about the secret places, about smoking cigarettes, about climbing slippery high rocks on a foggy day, about cooking periwinkles in rusty cans, prying them out with rusty nails, and savoring them with our unborn palates? Did mothers know about stories shared, about tears shed […]

STITCH & BITCH The women settle, their needles click in thick air. At the window one heart-red geranium lists toward light, three paper whites wrest from fisted bulbs, their roots worm about the small stones. The coffee steams, cakes slant on the sideboard beside the china plates and cream, spills of yarn pool in russet […]

MONHEGAN SUMMER DAY Reflections from the Pierce House Porch Primroses, Chrysanthemums Phlox Artemisia Marsh grass yellow, brown, green Swallows’ orange breasts, slate gray backs Seascapes Crashing surf Lobster traps Stacked five high Laundry on lines Graveyard stones Face the village and harbor From 18th century Brackett Pierce Trefethren Starling Orne Wait staff time off Sitting […]

CAPSTAN CHANTEY (after hours) memories gather thick and random no more welcome than gnats whirring over the moss on the fragrant hummock the old pine left in dying i was thirty then just finding life uneasily blissful in my new and doomed marriage a late bloomer husbanding trouble and strife that warm atlantic night kathy […]

JANUARY–SONG IN E MINOR The measured voice of a silver clarinet, insistent repetitions on a jazz pianist’s keys flow out in unseen waves across the air from Maine. Deep blue variations from a distant saxophone insinuate their point and counterpoint probing the amber spaces of this room on this island where friends are gathered to […]

CAROLS The conjured images are changeless over time. In the “little town,” windows are lit beneath slanted roofs, dark streets lined with bare-limbed trees, above them, a clear midnight sky, scissored stars, Orion’s belt. The angels’ breath is visible. All Faithful leave bootprints as they come. And the Family huddled and homeless in their shed, […]

WINTER SOLSTICE for Jeb The full moon floats in a cauldron of white. Along the bank, birches snatch at the boy as he skates the pond, dizzy with speed. His mother clings to the sidelines where the ice is more transparent, where she can judge the depth by twig and frozen leaf while he lunges […]

BLESSINGS Barefoot and hair unbound, in cotton gown I lean against the wood frame of my door and watch the day bleed down to fill the wine-tinged sea. I close the door. Now in my room and my small bed, I turn toward sleep. Above my roof, darkness moves in to mingle with the darkened […]