Quiet and Still

Quiet and still,

the lake lies like a lover sleeping,

roused to wake by the gentle caress

of a summer breeze, softly stirring.

Chip and Dale go on Vacation ...

to my back yard, their yearly trip,

where an animatronic dog greets them,

and hot on their tails,

chases them up a tree so life-like,

it’s hard to believe it’s constructed

of plaster and plastic, some artist’s

conception of a New England wood, oak and fir,

perfumed air for their little noises amid

a soundtrack of native birds, a continuous loop playing,
raucous and loud.

And as if on cue, the cast calls her from her chase

where she retreats into a façade, a door closing behind her,

or the stage show begins, well-rehearsed, calling for them

to chase her back themselves, humorous, this same show

time after time after time, on schedule,

Disney-esque, no Fastpass required.

But for the summer, it beats

the heat and congestion of Disney’s world,

my back yard but an alternate reality, for chipmunks,

a fantasy, fantastic and unreal.

          

      

A Summer Storm

From the safety of the porch

and the storm windows, battened down,

we watch the storm approach,

its final descent onto the lake.

Dark clouds had formed out of nowhere

obscuring the blue of a summer sky,

and the thermometer dropped, a rapid shift downward

in the temperature. The wind, too, kicked up a frenzy,

turning the leaves upside down and inside out.

While at the head of the lake, a line of demarcation advanced, 

smooth water on one side and whipped on the other,

wind and water, churned by a heavy rain.

We could see it coming as it steadily made its way

down the lake to where we sat, watching,

a spectacle less scary from the safety of the porch,

where we are now, protected, looking out,

sharing this together, secure in that;

but we are made small by this raging force,

unpredicted on a summer day, out of our control

and reminding us once again, who we are

and where our place is here at the lake, strangers,

a reminder solidified in a summer storm springing up,

safely herding inside to wait and watch and remember,

a storm ending as suddenly, as quickly as it began.

Homemade

He couldn’t call it “Homemade”;

they wouldn’t let him,

for it wasn’t made in a home,

not his home, a domicile,

but in a back room next to the pharmacy,

entered by a door on the back wall

by the magazines, and so it wasn’t “Homemade,”

but “Hallett’s Made,” political correctness before

it became popular, but strange in those days

of Hallett’s Drug Store, where I worked,

on the corner of Front Street and Center,

a local favorite in my hometown.

I spent my time after school and into the evening

dishing ice cream for others, a soda jerk

making ice cream concoctions with “Hallett’s Made”

ice cream, despite the sign, hanging

as it always had, proclaiming it “Homemade.”

It bore a good price, affordable though, for a single

scoop in a cup or a sugar cone, no extra charge,

or perhaps, dangerous living, a hot fudge sundae,

or butterscotch, by chance even a banana split;

I could make them all, hot fudge

and whipped cream, a cherry placed on top,

carefully, a final touch. And for the more refined,

an ice cream soda or a milkshake, made to order,

vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, rich and thick

with an extra scoop of ice cream, the way

I liked ‘em, long before I worried

about calories and cholesterol, a growing waistline.

But I soon left for college and the world, an adult career,

leaving Hallett’s and soda fountains behind

and moving away. I heard later that Mr. True retired, finally,

a fair man, and true, training me well,

well enough even to make the ice cream myself,

mixing the ingredients, the secret flavoring, sworn to secrecy.

So Mr. True retired and Hallett’s closed – and the ice cream?

Retired, too, rocking on my memory’s front porch,

drawn out now in poems of then, of growing up,

discovering work and jobs and the way life conducts itself,

the past going away into the recesses of remembrance,

set aside to surface on a day like today,

when a dish of “Homemade” Hallett’s ice cream

is what I crave, an extra scoop with hot fudge,

whipped cream, and the cherry carefully placed on top;

for this singular recollection reminds me

that I, too, am “homemade,” made in a small town

where Hallett’s Drug Store gave me my start,

dishing up a little nostalgia for each of us to carry

out into the world to help us remember home,

where we lived and where we grew up,

and what we left behind in leaving.

In Nature's Portrait

In nature’s portrait, sunlit

against a background of green,

variegated, brilliant color to muted shades,

the paintbrushes, daisies, and buttercups

grow wild among the blackberry bushes,

lush and heavy, weighted down,

to nurture our souls and feed our spirits.