Guest Poet C. Lawry Brown
New England Seasons
There comes a dawning
in early Spring,
A faint, sweet plaintive call.
A gentle dee-ar me
on a rising note
announces his arrival.
Sky blue on his back,
Red earth on his breast,
Purity of clean snow under his tail.
Ah...bluebird.
Summer, soft air permeated
by woodsy hint of sweet fern.
Wild strawberry carpet,
Fields of new mown hay.
Thrushes liquid bell song
floats into mountain stillness.
Harlequin of Summer
casts off his elegant dress coat.
Evenings close earlier,
Mornings taste of Autumn.
The smell of Autumn is in the earth,
Ripe apples and new cider.
Flaming colors line the hills,
Morning glistens with silver frost.
Cassiopeia spills
into maple tree tops.
Poplar leaves clap hands
as they drop in whispers.
In the scent of old wood
is a perfume of lost forests.
Fir trees under their meringue
bow heads and limbs,
Encased in crystal
shine like prisms in the moonlight.
The earth winter white.
The North wind blows in the chimney.
Snow drifts through cracks.
Shrubs scratch with icy fingers
at the windowpanes.
The crackling fire is voracious.
April, 2001
C. Lawry Brown's Questions:
In New England Seasons, I tried to give you the all the senses that someone
like myself that lives here takes for granted. I want the reader to be able
to identify with the different temperatures of each season. By adding the
birds, such descriptive words as "woodsy", "new mown hay", "perfume of lost
forests", "icy fingers", I hope to give the reader their own memory flash
back that they identify with each sense.
Please give me your memories when
you read these various parts. I would be very interested in what things they
bring to thought for you. Your comments will help me to write with more fine
tuning to get the effect I desire.
Thank You!
FOG
It was a glassy, calm might,
Where your boat rises up
and settles back down slow
under the sea's swell.
The sun had set.
The cool moon's face lit the bay.
Damp fog, like an emanation
from seaweed fringed shores
hung, motionless,
Filling every crevice of night
with tangible silence.
Island-studded bays
and cove-dented shores,
produce exquisite rhythms,
Compositions with fog
comparable to a skilled work of art.
All night the island lay
shrouded in a veil of silence,
But beware, act hastily,
For the long ledge's fingers
will reach out and pluck
the unsuspecting sailor to his doom.
Dawn comes.
This sun-filled haze permeates the cove
making it seem transparent.
The soft fog, slowly streams skyward
through the trees.
The mountains shook the last wisps of mist
from their hair.
April, 2001
C. Lawry Brown's Questions:
In Fog, I again tried to evoke all the senses, not only visual but olfactory
and auditory as well. If you have never experienced being in a boat in the
fog, I hope to give you that sensation with this poem. It is truly an
enlightening experience.
Please give me your impressions of the senses I
have put in this poem. I hope you look closer at this through you comments
to improve the quality of my visions in other poems I write.
Thank you!!
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