July 2016
Last Sunday in July
by Lynne Viti
Sun, then not-sun, clouds
then not-clouds,
warm, then not-warm.
This slender land can’t
make up its mind.
Cool breezes,
fungi of every color erupt–
red, colonies of chocolate brown,
or white, something you might
find in your salad.
Not much to do save
listen to Bill Evans ply the piano,
wrestle with the crossword,
turn off the phone.
Lynne Viti is a senior lecturer in the Writing Program at Wellesley College. Her poetry has appeared most recently in Paterson Review, Mountain Gazette, The LongLeaf Pine, Amuse-Bouche, Silver Birch Press, These Fragile Lilacs, Damfino Journal, In-Flight Literary Magazine, Blognostics, A New Ulster, The Journal of Applied Poetics, The Lost Country, Irish Literary Review, and in a curated exhibit at Boston City Hall. She won an Honorable Mention in the 2015 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest, and an award in the 2015 Summer Poetry Contest of The Song Is... She blogs at https://stillinschool.wordpress.com.
June 2016
Custody of the Eyes
Gerard Manley Hopkins
by Jeffrey Harrison
To look at the world
with devotion,
giving all of himself
to what was given,
sometimes gave him
so much pleasure
he thought it must be
a sin, distracting him
from his devotion
to God. Therefore
the eyes had to be
taken into custody
like a pair of criminals,
kept in the flesh-and-
bone cell of the head,
their gaze cast down
in penitence,
the eyes themselves
watched over
to prevent them from
looking at anything
more than was needed
to get through the day.
For weeks or months
at a time, and once
for half a year,
he denied himself
the beauty he knew
more acutely than others,
as if reducing each thing—
flower, stone, bird—
to a single word,
stripping it of the
singularity
he loved to describe
in rushing phrases
that spilled down
his journal’s pages.
But when the penance
ended, his sight
flew out
into the open sky
and over the fields,
innocently coming
to rest on each self-
expressing element
of creation
with such delight
and gratitude
he couldn’t keep
the words from
pouring out of him.
from Into Daylight, by Jeffrey Harrison, Tupelo Press, 2014
Jeffrey Harrison is the author of five books of poetry, including Incomplete Knowledge, runner-up for the Poets’ Prize in 2008, and Into Daylight, published by Tupelo Press in 2014 as the winner of the Dorset Prize and selected by the Massachusetts Center for the Book as a Must-Read Book for 2015. A recipient of Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships, his poems have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies.
May 2016
How to Draw a Tree
by Pamela Starr
First, abandon your desk and go outside.
Stand under the spreading branches,
gazing through curling leaves,
then down at swaths of eyelet
like Swiss cheese, holes
of light surrounded by shadow.
As the breeze fans your bare arms,
turn your gaze upon the massive trunk
stretching into the sky, touch
the jagged bark and blotches of lichen
that stick to one side, true north. Rest
your head on bare brown roots
and imagine how they grip
the ground beneath. Smell
the loam that covers them,
breathe in its freshness before
you go back inside, charcoal in hand,
to trace it on the naked page.
Sketch the trunk quickly, then feathery
branches and a cloud of leaves,
stippling a few to show their texture.
No brush stroke will capture
what rustles the leaves, or the squawk
of birds as they shout to one another
from branch to branch, or the peace
you feel lying flat on the ground
and looking up on a warm spring day,
when everything seems possible, the day
stretching endlessly in front of you,
dusk a dream far, far away.
Pamela Starr lives in Hudson, Massachusetts, and has worked as a textbook editor, technical writer, and project manager. Previous publications include an essay in Negative Capability as well as poems in Ballard Street Poetry Journal, GlassFire Magazine, Tilt-a-Whirl, and Currents Anthology VII.
April 2016
Emergence
by Barbara Lydecker Crane
From specks of eggs inert a year
and forest floors gray-brown and seer,
beetle legs creep.
Past pebbles ground by sea to sand
and seaweed fronds by current fanned,
silver scales leap.
In winds that swell and buffet seas,
through April lace of branching trees,
white wings sweep.
The seasons, sun and sea are skeins
that weave new life from roots and veins
and unseen sources deep.
Zero Gravitas and ALPHABETRICKS are Barbara Lydecker Crane’s chapbooks, available on Amazon. She has published over 100 poems–humorous or serious (or sometimes both)– in poetry journals and anthologies, including recent or forthcoming work in Atlanta Review, First Things, Light and Parody.
March 2016
Flores Woman
by Tracy K. Smith
A species of tiny human has been discovered, which lived on the remote Indonesian island of Flores just 18,000 years ago. . . . Researchers have so far unearthed remains from eight individuals who were just one metre tall, with grapefruit-sized skulls. These astonishing little people . . . made tools, hunted tiny elephants and lived at the same time as modern humans who were colonizing the area.
—Nature, October 2004
Light: lifted, I stretch my brief body.
Color: blaze of day behind blank eyes.
Sound: birds stab greedy beaks
Into trunk and seed, spill husk
Onto the heap where my dreaming
And my loving live.
Every day I wake to this.
Tracks follow the heavy beasts
Back to where they huddle, herd.
Hunt: a dance against hunger.
Music: feast and fear.
This island becomes us.
Trees cap our sky. It rustles with delight
In a voice green as lust. Reptiles
Drag night from their tails,
Live by the dark. A rage of waves
Protects the horizon, which we would devour.
One day I want to dive in and drift,
Legs and arms wracked with danger.
Like a dark star. I want to last.
from Duende (Graywolf Press, 2007)
Tracy K. Smith is the 2016 winner of the Robert Creeley Award. The public is invited to see Ms. Smith receive her award and read from her work at the Acton-Boxborough Regional High School auditorium on March 29 at 7:30 p.m. Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio is a sponsor of this free community event. We hope to see you there!
Ms. Smith is the author of Life on Mars (Graywolf Press), which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011; the memoir Ordinary Light (Knopf, 2015); and two other award-winning books of poetry, Duende and The Body's Question (Graywolf, 2002). She teaches at Princeton University.
February 2016
The Future of Apples
by Eve Linn
Remove spurs that do not fruit,
dry wood, water sprouts, or green
wood that crosses another branch.
One rubs another, bruises bark,
causes cankers, then rots.
In gloved hand, curved
shears, wait, oiled and ready.
Dive close. Cut slant and quick.
Sever the twig, still
sap-filled, clear, juice-sweet.
A clean cut with a sharp blade
is always best. Expose the wound
to sun. To dry, to harden, to callus.
The burn pile is full of twigs
cut for good reason.
Eve F.W. Linn received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing with a Poetry Concentration from Lesley University, Low-Residency Program and her B.A. cum laude in Studio Art from Smith College. She lives and writes west of Boston with her family. She enjoys fiber arts, photography, strong coffee, and dark chocolate, and dislikes small salty fish.
January 2016
Wassail Bowl
a renga* in celebration of apples composed by Susan Edwards Richmond
the first icy snow
fell
like a flock of angry sparrows
now, branches steeled
against a steely sky
the orchard is asleep
all the sweetness of the berries
is driven deep in the ground
the farmers scan nursery lists
plotting spring
the list of apples
her father grew in their orchard
high on the shoulder of Mount Blue
the cool taste of promise
on her tongue-
Green Crisp
Snowsweet
Maiden Blush
maybe Rhode Island Greening-
starting tart but aging sweet,
listen carefully
to what the trees tell us, saying
pay attention to the changes
the knowing
when to flower, when to fruit
toast with spiced cider
wassailing the trees,
the fairies, the nature sprites,
the scent of apples to come
animates the senses.
*A renga is a Japanese form of “linked poem," composed of alternating three- and two-line stanzas by poets working in pairs or small groups. This poem links lines excerpted from complete works from the following poets: Polly Brown, Lila Linda Terry, Terry House, William Lenderking, Deborah Melone, Franny Osman, Cheryl Perreault, and Susan Edwards Richmond.
December 2015
To love a salt marsh in winter
by Dawn Paul
To love a salt marsh in winter
is to love the color brown
crumbling storm-ravaged creek banks
slick frozen mudflats
weathered rushes and reeds.
To love a salt marsh in winter
is to love the sound
of tide-jumbled ice chunks
in flooded creeks
surf thrashing the beach
beyond the huddled dunes.
To love a salt marsh in winter,
face the wind
watch the horizon long and low
as one lone harrier drops down
from the empty sky.
Dawn Paul teaches writing and interdisciplinary studies at Montserrat College of Art and has published two novels, The Country of Loneliness and Still River. Her poetry has been published most recently in the Naugatuck River Review and the Paterson Literary Review. She is also a frequent performer on the Improbable Places Poetry Tour and works with the Mass Poetry Festival.
November 2015
Asking the Great Meadows a Question
by Louise Berliner
Evening primrose went crisp
and caught the fuzz
off the bulrushes; yes,
they went pale and skeletal
while the asters merely fizzed,
and the explosion of the bulrush
soldier hats—shocking.
Even milkweed joined the rampage,
launching parachutes
while the waters rose
on either side of the dyke,
the geese and ducks
once again in charge.
As I lay in bed,
I thought I walked among the herons,
escorted down avenues
of blooming goldenrod,
by buttonbush, horse lettuce,
blue vervain, meadowsweet;
saw the burr marigolds
shining in the shallow flats,
the lotus still late summer green
with her fabulous floating platters
clouds for the fish below.
Now those elephant ears
listen under water,
and their seedpods hang
their little Munchkin hat heads
like old-fashioned telephone receivers.
Hello? Hello?
Is anybody there?
A solo honk cuts the air,
bare stalks rustle in response.
I may not speak Goose,
but I recognize November.
What surgery did the seasons perform,
while I lay recovering in my bed,
the green going all kinds of color,
before surrendering to brown?
Louise Berliner plays with words, herbs, fiber, and vine. She has a studio at the Umbrella in Concord, MA. Her poems, articles, and short fiction have appeared in VQR, The Mom Egg, Porter Gulch Review, Ibbetson Review, Sacred Fire magazine, and plein air chapbook collections from Old Frog Pond and Fruitlands. She is the author of Texas Guinan, Queen of the Night Clubs, and when she isn’t writing or weaving can be found walking at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.
October 2015
Orpheus
by Leonore Wilson
He walks down the hill alone
away from me, with his bike
slung over his right shoulder
like a silver lyre, this man
who will pedal the eighteen miles
to the factory where he will mix
barley and hops and yeast
and water and watch as the alchemy
of beer cooks and the steam
rises out over the sunflower fields
and back pastures of the air force
town wishing he was on those wheels
again coming back through
the beneficence of buckeyes,
their flowery scent catching in his hair,
his sweat alive with the memory
of morning when we were
awakened by the same pure songbird
in the far canyon, the one hidden
we have yet to name, but
there steady as sunlight
and mist as we sidle up face to face
and our sleepy eyes open
as if we were the only dependable gods
on earth lending
our entire breath to the day.
from Western Solstice, published by Hiraeth Press
Leonore Wilson is the author of Western Solstice and Tremendum, Augustum, and has published in Quarterly West, Madison Review, Third Coast, Poets Against the War, and other journals. She has taught at universities and colleges throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and won fellowships to the University of Utah and Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts. She lives on her family cattle ranch in Napa, California.
September 2015
Raspberry Picking at Old Frog Pond
by Heather Corbally Bryant
Already the smell of Concord grapes punctuates
The night air—the mornings are cooler now, and chill—
Grass still green again now after summer’s burn—
Darkness comes more quickly, without hesitation.
We walk along a ridge and through an abandoned quarry
Past layers of ferns and darkened mosses.
The water reflects black from marble gathered
From underneath—beneath now stilled currents
Where the river used to flow. Afterwards, we follow
Signs to yet another pond where rows of raspberries
Grow side to side, reddening in the late August sun,
Almost full, dodging in between the buzzing bees
Busy pollinating for the next season while we pluck
Small jewels, plunking them in our baskets.
I am loath to relinquish this time, to return
To the routine of school, to realize that, as I watch,
My children are slipping through my fingers.
Heather Corbally Bryant teaches in the Writing Progam at Wellesley College. She is the author of a non-fiction study, “How Will the Heart Endure: Elizabeth Bowen and the Landscape of War,” a novel, “Through Your Hands,” and several poetry collections. Her poetry chapbook, “Compass Rose,” is forthcoming from the Finishing Line Press in February 2016.
August 2015
The Mallow Leans toward the Sun
by Helen Marie Casey
Songs of cicadas overwhelm silence until even the whispers
of trees grow inaudible. Beneath ancient canopies,
mottled oaks shake tired leaves, butterflies sail into and out of
darkest shadows. I am the one who slakes the thirst
of daisies, lilies, catmint. The chipmunk, the squirrel,
and the crow gossip. Impatiens would like to dominate. Weeds,
in wild abandon, shrug. Asters rise, too common for notice.
Sundrops, yellow luster out of season now, straggle and grow limp.
The Japanese maple, silent as a queen, keeps its purple secrets.
“The Mallow Leans toward the Sun” is excerpted with permission from Casey’s longer work titled “Maybe an Iris.”
Helen Marie Casey has lived in Sudbury, Massachusetts, for 35 years and has learned to love New England's seasons and heritage with an unanticipated passion. Her chapbooks include Fragrance Upon His Lips, a series of poems about Joan of Arc, and Inconsiderate Madness, a series of poems about Mary Dyer. She has also written a biography about one of Sudbury's artists, My Dear Girl: The Art of Florence Hosmer.