Four Lake Winnepesaukee Poems

1.
We call the boy at poolside.
He is curled up,
His knees to his chest and is
Plucking ants from the concrete.
He plunges his hands into
The water and mutely, slack-jawed, watches them drown.
The raw state of humanity, inviolable?
The rough childhood of our species?
An anomaly?
Nature itself?

My husband mutters:
Stupid kid doesn’t know when
To come in from the dead god rain.
Dead god? She questions.
Doggone, I meant. Doggone.

And the rain showers mercy on the ants
For whom the flood is closer than myth.
We rescue what we can.
Inside, the gas fire and pecan pie.
It will be a good weekend,
Despite the rain.

2.
With shaking pink mitts
A big fat stone baby
Takes chips and jams
Them into his maw,

The sound is
That of crunching bones
And it wends off, skittering down the hollow.

Orah!
Oray!
Granny sits at the pump organ
And turns, mid-chord
To smile at her plum.
Orah! My boy, my baby!

3.
Her husband gone,
The summer home now serves year round.

When the snow falls, she
Doesn’t worry about groceries –
She, surrendered her appetites
In marked stages, and
Now the ceiling fan is
Turned, just slightly, by
Slight wind alone.

The vacuum cleaner – someone will come along some day to fix it
And it’s best to leave it there.
The plastic owl has, somehow,
Been taken from the lawn
And placed just here, on
The frosted glass.

In the distance, the ocean sounds.
A fat raccoon comes to the
Window and stares,
Perplexed.
He doesn’t get it, either.

She takes the clock from the wall.
The lilacs now grow wild and
Feral, hungry little mouths.
She listens close for ocean sounds.
Distant, but present.

That raccoon comes again.
“I’m not dead yet,” she says to him.
He turns to face the
Stones and clamshells of
Otter’s Hill.

He disappears with the moon.
Each rainstorm – the
Fan spinning –
“we’re not dead yet,”
She says,
Mouthing the words to
Him, the dear departed man who smoked
A pipe on the back porch
And posed formally, but with a hint of a cunning smile,
In tin photographs, painted with blue and white.

4.
We see in the faces of the youth
The all encompassing mind of God—
Blind, idiot, all-judging.

All our fears were writ out before.

Fear the old. Fear the young.

Frozen between, a brood of concern.
Not anxiety, hardly terror
But the lakewoven constancy of
Plain fear.
The gremlins have gone from the night.

We were promised wisdom and
Insight and sore bones!
Our teeth
Would be punched from the roots of our gums wabang
But we would
Face the ever gentle,
Ever wrathful God
With equanimity.
Did we self-deceive?
Or were we lied to?
I’ve caught myself in a contradiction.
I know I’ve made it this far
With awareness undimmed. I say this with
Humility. A stone for a bed. An adored skiff
For a bed.
Gremlins, be damned.