Bryant Pond

Wind ripples the glassy lake and sends
Lily pads rising and falling
A dead tree trunk lies immobile
In its permanent resting place
Once-crisp leaves moldering in the muck

A lone frog echoes its own call out
Across the silence from the other side
Where dark woods lead to abandoned camps
Their skeletal docks empty
Plastic kayaks tied up tight against the porches
Rafts stacked on shore for the long winter
The houses sit, unmoving
Water and trees constantly in motion
Tuneless songs riding out the seasons

A forgotten stone picnic table sits
Under a tall evergreen at
The empty boat launch on Rowe Hill Rd.
In my car, looking at the pond,
I wonder if I will miss this place
Its unforgiving solitude and
Beautiful, sweet air.

Reflections in a Window

Tonight the light from the lamp
Illuminates my naked body onto a
Backdrop of dusk
My breasts blend into the
Moist green grass of the
Yard beyond the house
Glowing and round and
Moving slightly as I breathe
As the grass flutters in the breeze

The curve of my waist merges with the
Straight line of the roof's edge
Soft belly and thighs with
Cold tar shingles
Warm tungsten skin radiates
This image of life onto
Cool, smudged glass
Hard as the granite that birthed it.

Saying Goodbye to Maine

Heading down the hill, I watch
Trees shaking violently in the wind
Elastic limbs contorting
Throwing their plumage of leaves
To the freshly tarred asphalt

The cast-offs cascade across the road
Dead oranges, yellows and browns
Tumbling like fallen acrobats
Clinging to their last breaths
Broken trapeeze branches leering high above

In the cool October night the fading
Sunlight sharpens the shadows
Brings out the colors in the hills
Shiny distant windows beaming back a
Silent S.O.S. to the waning day

Squirrels, emboldened by late-season panic,
Dart across the street and I nearly hit one,
A close call out here in the country,
The swollen half-moon my only witness and salvation.

Woodsmoke

Early morning blush fades away
His hand rests on her back
Like a hot stone
There is calm, and acceptance
Hours passing in the short daylight
Lead them home to each other -
Quick, simple dinner,
Bottle of wine
Some ice cream on a cold night
These are the things that add up
To forever:
Fire in the woodstove
Kissing in the orange night
Cat-scratched couch with flat cushions
Sleep comes fast, feet up, hair down
Years pass, just like this.

Canopy

Follow me into this
Silver linden canopy
We'll lie on our backs looking up
Centenarian boughs braiding their own sky
Green leaf stars
Cosmic comets trailing
As we touch, synchronous creation
Of a new celestial story
Bound, terrestrial, in the ancient roots
Of this soft soil foundation.

-GSS 2012

Constellations

We scratched our names in the sky
Etched our hands in the grass
Dry under the moonless night
Your tongue warm and wet
My eyes straining to see yours -
Crystal points reflecting light,
My dark shadowed mouth seeking
Your silent acquiescence

How did we find each other there
In the field across the road
After dark on a Tuesday
Under all those stars?

We never found the North Star
But it shined down all the same
Orion and The Pleiades
Shimmering ancient beacons
Leading us to one another,
Though I would have found you
Even in the pitchest black.


-GSS 2012

Spring Thaw

Melting snow holds tight around the trees
New green leaves shaking lightly
As sun shaft shadows scatter light
Spindly thawing twigs break at right angles
Encountered by unnatural intrusion
Dusty iron grills filled with old char dry and crack
Empty picnic tables expand again, at last
Wood grains releasing moisture into air

When the silence is complete and I am whole
The noise of the falling river will lift me
Out of this darkness punctuated by
Ice breaking into shards
Pine needles will stick to my hands,
Sand grinding into my teeth and
This need for sharing will drown

I could die here, easily, disappear into earth
Blend back into the dust of last winter
My solid and un-weathered parts
Glinting back out through the sun
But I will choose to go on,
To find night amid the mountains
Eat a small dinner for one,
Sleep, dream and breathe you,
Then begin again.

-GSS 2012