by Elizabeth Tibbetts

Now we are in the presence of nieces: sapling-
legged girls who wear emerging breasts high
on their chests.  Small pearls adorn their ears.
And the lavender fatigue of rapid growth shows
beneath their eyes.  They’re still young enough
to have a little to do with the rest of us.  Though
they could fly away on their lush black lashes,
they play chess with uncles, arm-wrestle fathers,
and allow their aunts and mothers to watch.  If
you’re there, as they believe, gold crosses flickering
like bees at their necks, watch over them
when they leave us behind.
And thanks
for this food: platters of roast spring lamb, sweet
potato, fragrant rolls.  Though none of us, trust me,
cooks as well as the dead aunt who now bakes pizza
for you.  So why try?  But we all do.  Who makes
the best ricotta pie?  Even I vied for that as I wove
thin strips of dough, crimped crust — though I’m
married into a foreign tribe.  As are all the women
at the table.  They don’t seem struck, forks halfway
to their mouths, wondering how they got here,
what will or twist of fate set this plate before them.

by Elizabeth Tibbetts

He used a child’s paint box and a kitchen
saucer for mixing.  Trillium and poppies tower over
cattails bordering a stream.  Proportion means nothing
here, perspective little, though he could build

a house he had drawn inside his head.
Water lilies, purple violets.  No evidence
of gas mask, helmet, dog tags, maps of France —
the Great War hidden in a chest in the attic.

A path winds down to the water.  The paper
cuts off flow, clover, fallen limbs, so the woods
stretch on forever.  Across his street
old white pines let down strands of light

to the needled floor, where mourning cloaks
flitted.  Farther in, water walkers skimmed
a shaded pool.  Finches rocked his feeders,
and peaches and plums, despite winters,

weighted trees he’d planted.  Notwithstanding
mustard gas and running loaded stretchers
through blood, mud, bodies, and the hard,
sometimes-sweet years after, when frail,

deaf, but still sure-sighted, with a quiet hand
he painted Wild Flowers in the Woods — a scene
lush as love, yet wall-paper flat, as though we
would never need to enter, we were already there.

by Gary Lawless

I
Echo
(Jay white granite)

Before language, there was granite.
In granite, the echo of all things —
rock wraps around, re-sounds,
echo of sunlight
echo of starlight
echoes of all
the rock has heard —
a larger sound than we can know,
found below —
granite wraps around me I
rest in the rock my
grandfather worked in the quarries —
Mosquito Mountain, Mount Waldo —
granite time is slow, slow time —
in granite time, my grandfather is
just leaving.
I can almost hear his voice,
echoing.

II
Wave
(Freeport stone)

Granite was once liquid, and moving.
You can see the flow lines, currents
in the living rock,
wave and flow, the
grain within,
interstitial.

Everything rises from rock,
granite in waves, flowing —
I find myself touching
granite, asking
who are you,
where are you from —
Frankfort, Prospect,
Stonington, Vinalhaven,
Freeport, Jay —
I’m saying hello to
whole mountains moving —
I’m waving back
into the rock.

by Kendall Merriam

Nude Piano
for Richard and Edna St. Vincent Millay

Are you practicing for when
Josephine Baker is reincarnated
she a heroine, you conscious
of deep soul beauty
your photographs call
“Look at me!  Look at me!”
“I am lovely for the camera!”
these images carry on for eons
long after condemning clerics
are dust out in the Universe
Gods and Goddesses
hang works of yours
in millions of museums
galleries, palaces, huts
that keep us aware of women
outwardly, in minds and talents
now you make music
getting ready for halls
where a dime a dance
flourishes, in no way “sinful”
there is a lot of talk of Vincent
who lived a life
more to your work
than staid ladies
not realizing how she really
thought, acted, wrote, loved
when you are pleased
enough with your handling
of the keys, maybe a few
of us could chip in
for speakers on your house
aimed at her Rockland birth place
and you could play away
giving her a real reason
to dance again

Kendall Merriam, at Huston-Tuttle, 7/15/16, 3:55 PM
Listening to Cheryl talk to customers.