September 2022

The equinox of autumn approaches. And, as always, the ending - even to this singularly fraught, drought-seared summer - is bittersweet. There will be much to miss in the generous canopy of the catalpa tree and the cobalt swooping of the swallow. Yet, there also will be much to embrace in the coming chill hours and the clamorous vees of Canada geese.

The Power of 9

by Didi Chadran

I still dream of the book of numbers you

Shared with me that day at Old Frog Pond Farm

When you led me to the water’s edge to

Sit and gaze into the nacreous brown.

You asked what exactly I saw, and

I started to render pond froth as if

Tiny white foam flotillas. I pointed,

“See how some surge and halt, impounded by

Eddies, while others glide resolutely past?

How some cleave, like amoebas, while others

Divorce, to find new paths, new rivulets?”

I looked up towards your face. You just smiled:

“It’s time to turn this off, open your eyes.

Surrender full to this instant in time.”

“No story, no metaphor,” you told me.

“Practice watching, not weaving. Hold onto

Each still second - not montage - in your heart.”

Just pause, you said. Just feel. Let what is be.

This moment is all. There is no origin

Or destination. The froth. The water.

That lily pad. The sun. This rock wall. Us.

The power of 9. The enigma of 1.

We. Together. Separate. Connected.

Our breath. This breeze. The thrum of life adored.

Didi Chadran is a doting father; a dabbler in poetry, prose, and storytelling;

an unapologetically liberal microblogger on Instagram and Twitter; a

corporate content strategist; and the alchemist of a

sambal

-style hot sauce

whose flavor arcs from sweet and umami to scorching in the span of two

seconds. A vociferous adherent of the ideas that Black Lives Matter,

democracy is fragile, and community is destiny, Didi lives and works in

Downtown Mill City Lowell.

August 2022

Is there anything more invigorating than August rain? That steady shower on a steamy afternoon; blue sky still rimming the clouds; the ground and all that grows from it parched with a thirst only this sweet, fresh downpour will slake?

Staccato Rain

by Joanne DeSimone Reynolds

In August it bears repeating

like the tales of a thousand and one nights

that kept a king from sleeping

like an ancient drumbeat:

feet stomping the ground,

the pond’s surface tension sprouting

a field of coronets like Old Cole’s crown

like that plash of milk Edgerton photographed with a strobe:

elemental in its refrain

the exaltation of jumping beans

of the untrammeled on a trampoline

Settle down boys…

The farmer loves to see another day:

frogs leaping in…in rounds.

Joanne DeSimone Reynolds is the author of two chapbooks: Brought To Our Knees, from Art Ramble 2020, and Comes a Blossom, by Main Street Rag. She lives in Scituate. “Staccato Rain” first appeared in the Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio Plein Air chapbook, Splash.

July 2022

One of my favorite childhood memories is of a morning in early July when my friends and I were stopped by a normally grumpy neighbor, the grandfather of a schoolmate, and entreated to “Look! Look! Look there!” When we followed the line of his gnarled finger, we saw a blue we’d never seen before, not even in the bucolic hills of the surrounding Berkshires.

That memory is from the 1960s, a time of great social, cultural, political, and ecological tumult, a time when the grown-up world felt fraught with discord and danger, a time not unlike our own, a time very much in need of a bluebird.

Old Frog Pond Farm Poetry Editor, Terry House

BLUEBIRD

by Wendy Drexler

Blue as sapphires. As Monet’s blue

water lilies. Put-down-your-burdens blue.

Stay-here blue and blue clear through. Lapis blue

of the Virgin’s robe, the deep-sea’s untrammeled blue.

Blue as my valley, my shelter, my twilight mist, my thou-shalt-

not-want. Blue perches on the garden fence, sun catches the bright bead

of its eye. Blue swoops down to the sea of lavender bee balm,

crown vetch, Black-eyed Susans. Bustling bees, bundled

in yellow sweaters, dip

their tongues into

the fringed petals

that sway with

the weight of the bees’

own bodies. I’d forgotten

beauty, its take-your-breath away, its

unexpected grace. How I’m helpless before it.

After days and days keeping the outside out, the inside in,

my heart retracted like a snail. So haggard at the heart, so care-coiled,

as Hopkins calls it. Come, sweet scent of mown grass, come, nectar

of my own sweet sweat. Come bluebird, flying now,

flown—carrying sky on your back.

 Wendy Drexler is a recipient of a 2022 artist fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her third poetry collection, Before There Was Before, was published by Iris Press in 2017. Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, J Journal, Lily Poetry Review, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, Solstice, Sugar House, The Atlanta Review, The Mid-American Review, The Hudson Review, The Threepenny Review, and the Valparaiso Poetry Review, among others. She’s been the poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, since 2018, and is programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club. Her fourth collection, Notes from the Column of Memory, will be published in September 2022 by Terrapin Books. Her website is www.WendyDrexlerPoetry.com

June 2022

June throbs with life. As I write, a mother robin feeds her gaping, zesty newborns in the nest she’s built on my window sill. On the farm, too, new life abounds in orchard, garden, pond, and wood. And wending amid these fresh beginnings are piquant memories of past joys, past dreams, past rites, past Junes,

A Widow’s Tale

by Moira Linehan

Across the pond, twenty chairs for a wedding.

Mine, ever in mind. Later today, a June wedding

on the pond’s other side. The sky, something blue

for the bride. One frothy cloud. Their vows will wed

the couple now forever to this pond. A Great Blue

drifts down over it in time to a wedding

march. Deliberately sure. The wings’ cold blue

undersides almost skim the water. Our wedding

in a stone chapel in winter. Then brilliant blue

the next morning’s sky as we skated. We, too, wedded

to a pond, the one behind our home. Dan hummed The Blue

Danube Waltz to me. With this ring I thee wed.

When I took it off, I broke out in hives. My great blue.

I wore it for another year. My art of being wed,

the art of memory. A second Great Blue

arrives. Last month I moved from our pond. My wedded

imprinted world has come with me. The two Great Blues

fly off together. Later today, a small wedding.

Moira Linehan had two collections of poetry come out in 2020: TOWARD from Slant Books and & COMPANY from Dos Madres Press. She has two earlier books: IF NO MOON (2007) and INCARNATE GRACE (2015), both from Southern Illinois University Press. “A Widow’s Tale” first appeared in the Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio Plein Air chapbook, Memoir.

May 2022

May is the month when spring sings. The flute song of the oriole zings through air heady with the scent of lilac and lily-of-the-valley. And in the orchard, amidst apple trees newly be-leafed and be-blossomed, spring’s aria of rebirth reaches a transcendent, soul-shimmying crescendo.

Born Again in the Apple Orchard

by Cheryl Perreault

While I walk shy in my own quiet human skin,

suddenly with new eyes I see

the revivalist nature of all these trees

amidst this verdant, vibrant church of apple orchard.

All arms extended out in welcome,

converting my human reticent feet to change their cautious pace,

to want to dance as they resonate with all this

celebration of tribal vibrant pounding sound

holy-rollering from this fertile sanctuary that surrounds,

like the wild summer finch twitter and the blackbird call of oak-a-ree,

like the breeze howling out vespers of sacred songs of poetry.

This place of congregation hallelujah life force

of every effervescent single cell of thing — all welcome and all welcoming,

even the chanting multitude of a million tiny swaying grasses,

even the viridescent katydid with outstretched praying legs.

All here focused on the infinite arboreal blue that peeks and preaches

among every living thing reaching skyward.

Suddenly this orchard becomes my religion and ancestry.

Suddenly I feel tree prayers from deep within the roots of me.

Suddenly I surprise myself with my own newfound voice

belting out loud hymns of rejoice amidst this choir of apple trees.

Cheryl Perreault hosts programs of poetry, storytelling, and song and is a long-time participant in Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio’s Plein Air Poetry projects. Since the start of the pandemic, she has taken to sitting outside for long durations to applaud the poetry of birds, squirrels, and trees.

“Born Again in the Apple Orchard” first appeared in the Plein Air chapbook, Memoir.

April 2022

If the pandemic can be compared to a long and fretful hibernation, then this fresh, new April finds us tentatively, hopefully, stepping out into the world again. With an optimism tempered by awareness, we seek familiar paths, old haunts, new joys. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, indeed - and for that, this time, this spring, let us be thankful.

Chercher la Piste

By William Lenderking

In the quadrant, four directions beckon

teasing varied potentials:

studio, falls, orchard, deck…

I search for the path between memoir and possibility:

I thought first to walk the curving arm of the pond

to see the sticks I saw last winter gone -

suspended over the ice—sheathed in silver glaze,

bringing eerie stillness to the place.

Then I thought to find the ginseng patch

to search for the leaf that never yet showed.

But under my first step, a garter snake stirs

and slips into the moss

as if its languid pace were camouflage -

while elsewhere a raptor swoops a lightning loop

over an elusive dove.

And then it comes to me.

I receive all I need from here.

It is enough today to sit with friends,

filling up with afternoon.

William Lenderking is a musician, yoga teacher, blessed father, and consultant/psychologist, who uses his love of words and poems to bring soul into his life as often as possible. He is a frequent participant in Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio Plein Air Poetry projects including the chapbook Paths Tracks Trails, in which “Chercher la Piste” first appeared.

March 2022

Freeze and thaw, snow and rain, the month of lions and lambs is upon us.  From the still dormant orchard, last year’s leftover leaves rattle in the wind; while from the waking wetlands, this year’s redwings flirt and trill. Welcome, March, month of stirring contradictions, you bring us much to savor, mourn, and contemplate.

Plein Air Meditation

By Hilary Sallick

Water falls from the eaves of the hut

I stop and listen   Walking here

I was making new paths

through snow

stepping up and out

and then    as if wearing high heels

finding myself suddenly taller

on the frozen crust

The snow is hard and soft   melting now

dripping   landing   noisily

The birds are calling   redwing chickadee crow

I’ve turned off my phone

and fall silent into inner

silence   the ground where the forest

stands   so many trees leaning against

one another entangled branches and roots

I found a twig of the oak

caught by the pine

Now cold on the rising wind

last year’s leaves dangle   musical

Hilary Sallick, a poet and teacher in Somerville, MA, is the author of a full-length poetry collection, Asking the Form (Cervena Barva Press, 2020). She is also vice-president of the New England Poetry Club. Her poem, “Plein Air Meditation,” first appeared in Old Frog Pond & Studio’s 2018 Plein Air Poetry chapbook, Paths Tracks Trails.  To read more of her work, go to www.hilarysallick.com. 

February 2022

January in New England finds us reacquainting ourselves with winter’s forgotten pleasures. At the farm, a hopeful skater tests the ice with an upended hockey stick, then, satisfied, glides along the frozen pond. Above the dormant orchard, the season’s vibrant sunset pastels give way to an ebony sky spotlit by the rising wolf moon.

Ah, if only winter left us January 31st! Perhaps then, February would find us wistful for the dark and frigid month just passed rather than fully sated, impatient for light and heat.

Cold Moon

            By Lynne Viti

Winter self

longs for summer.

High winds scuttle leaves

that weeks ago seemed

frozen to the ground.

A full cold moon lights up

the mess of a front yard,

grass shreds, earth flung there

by a wayward sidewalk plow.

Summer self 

never longs for winter.

Instead fixes itself in the moments

of each long day, taking in

the soil’s heat underfoot

well after the sun

drops.

Lynne Viti is the author of three poetry collections: Baltimore Girls (2017), The Glamorganshire Bible (2018), and Dancing at Lake Montebello (2020). A lecturer emerita at Wellesley College, she teaches poetry and literature workshops in community settings, including the Westwood Public Library and the Dover Council on Aging. As an Old Frog Pond & Studio Plein Air poet, she has contributed poems to numerous Plein Air Poetry projects including Path Tracks Trails, Speaking of Sculpture, and Refuge.

January 2022

We who live in cold climates know well the fearsome wonder of a winter storm. The world simultaneously stops and swirls, narrows and expands. We are at once vulnerable and alone and yet part of a profound, communal experience. Whether we shovel, plow, or wait and watch, we are infused with awe for a force greater than our own.

Winter Psalm

by Richard Hoffman

Boston snowbound, Logan closed, snowplows

and salt-trucks flashing yellow, drifts

tall as a man some places, visibility poor,

I sit by the window and watch the snow

blow sideways north-northeast, hot cup

in hand, robe over pajamas.

You have made me to seek refuge

and charged me to care for my brothers.

How cruel. That could only be You out there

howling, cracking the trees, burying everything.

~~ from Emblem

Richard Hoffman has published four volumes of poetry, Without Paradise; Gold Star Road; Emblem; and Noon until Night. His other books include the memoirs Half the House and Love & Fury, and the story collection Interference and Other Stories.

December 2021

As we move towards the longest night of the year, the growing darkness of the approaching solstice tinges our memories of spring’s promise, of summer’s warmth, of autumn’s color with a singular sadness. Eventually, of course, winter’s delights will charm us as they always do; but for now, let us simply face this natural sense of loss, with the wise master, Gerard Manley Hopkins, as our companion.

Spring and Fall
To a Young Child

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Margaret, are you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's spríngs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

(Public Domain)

Gerard Manley Hopkins(1844-1889) largely eschewed publication during his lifetime. However, his posthumously-published poetry established the Jesuit priest as one of the most important and influential poets of the Victorian era. W.H. Auden and Dylan Thomas each counted Hopkins as an influence.

November 2021

By November, autumn’s giddy, gaudy glory has been spent. The remnants of October spill about us, damp and faded, like discarded streamers after the last party guest has left. November is the month of drudgery, of dimming light, of grim acceptance; and - perhaps, because of this - it is the month of remembrance, of reflection, of gratitude.

Bittersweet

for Barbara Trainer

by Anastasia Vassos

As if the matriarch who died last year

could hear her, Barbara says sorry, Andree

as we hack away at the Oriental Bittersweet.

It’s clung to the porch’s iron railing

for fifty years. Its little orange capsules hold

red seeds that will never take hold

because of our necessary task.

We make our saddest effort cleaning up

the garden for winter. Yesterday, we pitch-forked

the pile of wood chips at the top of the hilll,

moved them down the path to the hollow

barrow by barrow, almost as far as the bridge.

Behind our backs, the red maple in the center

of the yard had dropped her yellow skirt.

The bittersweet won’t grow back -

we’ve made sure of that - it’s invasive,

non-native, and we’ve hacked it down

to its stubby root. But the iris that we split,

rhizomes bleached in a ten

percent solution, will take hold

once spring comes, and push their spathes

toward the sun, standards blazing, beards

almost psychedelic in their insistence.

Such is the stubbornness of nature.

She plays dead, then comes back to life

like Lazarus, who could not stay

underground for more than four days

before he was revived.

The poems of Anastasia Vassos appear in RHINO, SWWIM, Rust+Moth, Thrush Poetry Journal, Comstock Review and elsewhere. She is the author of “Nike Adjusting Her Sandal” (Nixes Mate, 2021). Her chapbook “The Lesser-Known Riddle of the Sphinx” was named a finalist in Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize. She is a Best of the Net finalist, and reads for ,Lily Poetry Review, speaks three languages, and is a long-distance cyclist. She lives in Boston.

More information about Nike Adjusting Her Sandal, in which “Bittersweet” is included, is available at the following links:

https://nixesmate.pub/product/nike-adjusting-her-sandal-%c2%b7-anastasia-vassos/

Nike Adjusting Her Sandal

October 2021

October is magic in New England. It is the month when spring’s fragile blossoms and wee, sown seeds ripen into voluptuous apples and prize-winning pumpkins. It is a mystical month burning with the incandescence of flaming foliage, harvest moon, and candle-lit jack-o-lantern grins. It is a month when - in a certain light - it seems almost anything is possible.

Voyager

By Linda Fialkoff

If you mount the iron horse

And its wings spread out to fly

Feel the knocking in your heart

As you lift up to the sky.

When art’s passion fuels your breath

Clouds of wonder draw you nigh

Pull back the reins of life and death

Tell the horseman pass you by.

Give up struggle and surrender

All the weapons of your flight

And the violin moon will render

Lovers rushing into light.

Here the stars remain unbroken

And the brain cannot know why

Let the words be left unspoken

Let the lips speak no reply.

Rain and thunder saints a throwing

Angels falling with the hail

Keeping watch on all that’s growing

in the dream beyond the veil.

You are shaken you are carried

Down the mountain through the storm

And the evening wind will marry

Rainbow colors of the morn.

Floating freely down the river

Laughing, drinking in the sun

Come the farmers with their darlings

Come the apple fruit and drum.

Linda Fialkoff is a holistic psychotherapist in practice in eastern Massachusetts. She is a self-described occasional poet and a grateful lover of the Earth and all its beings.