Laughing Time - a memory of yester year
Laughing time
Muse about the laughing time when
dresses came all undone – while life force
welled in glows around us.
Dream about the laughing time when
Caresses flame two as one – as life force
swelled in throes consumed us.
69
with any fairness at all we’ve all been there
© stephen n mckinney
Crows and Snow
Crows and Snow
The bay is packed in ice with snow from shore to shore
where the great moon tide comes in all creaking,
inexorably lifting that ponderous protesting mass.
Across the white reach the far shore stretches unbroken and virgin,
not one cabin, one dwelling, to send its’ light across to me
and the only bird here in this bitter cold of winter’s wind
Is the crow – flying solitaire with flapping scrutiny of the intruder.
But now that I have come often enough to the field and the tide
they have come to fly in pairs – slow steady beats of their wings
and we accept one another.
The bay packed with snow and ice from shore to shore
heaved randomly into giant statuesque stroboplosions of ice sculpture
as in some slow motioned dream of crows and snow
by the living tide, venting itself against the unseen living rock
– yet I know the Smelts come soon and so too the Tom Cod.
Is it this visibly frozen cold that is their dream
or is it the spring to come?
69
the most magical bay in my first venture into the past of my youth in 1970 -
West Bay, an arm of Gouldsboro Bay in Maine.
© stephen n mckinney
Calum Climbing His Favorite Kind of Tree
https://www.arborday.org/trees/treeGuide/TreeDetail.cfm?ItemID=917
Sassafras albidum
also commonly known as Sassafras
A captivating, native North American tree known for its brilliant
display of autumn foliage and aromatic smell. Leaves are 3"–7" long,
bright to medium green in summer changing to enchanting colors of
yellow, deep orange, scarlet and purple in the fall. They have a unique
mitten (right- and left-handed) or three-lobe shape. The 1/2" dark blue
fruit is loved by birds in the fall. Plant in full sun or partial shade
in moist, acidic, well-drained soil. Be sure to remove any shoots that
develop for a single-trunk tree. Grows at a medium to fast pace to
30'–60' tall with a 25'–40' spread. (zones 4–9)
Calum and I walked about two hours in the Fire Tower wood
Calum and I walked up the old horse trails, now almost overgrown, to the fire tower and here on the far side we are looking for the old four wheeler trails that cut through here toward 272 and on all of which I used to run pushing him in one of those three-wheeler baby joggers and after a mile or two he would be sound asleep breathing the deep clean air of off road running - now the trails have overgrown and we cannot even find them though he still loves this wood land
Walnut Cake - For Many Years I Have Had A Walnut Cake For My Birthday
and Jennifer took time out of her busy life to give me one with just enough great icing
"The Summer Sun Is Sinking Low"
The summer sun is sinking low;
Only the tree-tops redden and glow:
Only the weathercock on the spire
Of the neighboring church is a flame of fire;
All is in shadow below.
