Late November: Lamoine, Maine \ The Old Woman Draws A Map Of Her World

Alan: This one could be subtitled, “Monochrome with blue dot.”

Late November: Lamoine, Maine

The yards of Lamoine

are no-yards:

planes of mown space

no longer quite grass.

November’s no-flowers

smile no smile on these gardens –

rectangles, squares tucked in,

readied for winter.

Perhaps a boat

trailered and blocked, tight

in blue tarp.  Otherwise

not even rows of split firewood

to part the close gray;

homes set just so, wan,

silent in half-light, prudent

beside modest drives.

An almost no-sun tiptoes

meekly into this no-drama,

pauses, whispering

snow... snow... 

and makes its way into clouds.

Nancy: Difficult to explain why I’ve been writing on my shirt...

The Old Woman Draws A Map Of Her World

Stone and green.

All the shores, so different.

Canyon wren and hermit thrush.

She ponders Palestrina and mariachi

and decides on the octopus

flashing colors on a coral shore.

Rivers and fish, fossils in the cliffs

or weathered out on the beaches.

As she has always done, she labels

the trees with their names, and the

flowers.  Here and there she leaves empty

spaces; her world is still growing.

Growing, elephant tree, manzanita

hackmatack,

Amanita, growing old, growing tired

pipsissewa.  Tired.  Niagara Falls

Bridal Veil falls, she shakes herself

awake.

Empty space, footprints, mink and bear

room to grow

the pen

the pen

          a blue-black pool

where it rests

          so tired