JODY GLADDING ~

hill wife

beside the grave

the ties gave

was she there

everywhere

in the fern

or return

when he called her

of black alder

on her lips

the fresh chips

or felled tree

she was free

and no child

and too wild

_______________

Jody Gladding

Translations from Bark Beetle

Milkweed Editions, 2014

GENEVIEVE TAGGARD ~

 

Remembering Vaughan in New England

I saw reality the other night,

By New England moon-light.

All of my life, living has been

One or another kind of dream.

Now, nothing festooned itself between

Me, and the substance of moon-beam.

The land is honest, small and swept

Bare as a barn-yard floor

In winter. And no third thing crept

As it had, times before.

No feeling, its mist to intervene,

No inner thought to warp . . .

I stood: and behold, the trees were lean,

And lo ! the hills were sharp.

Moon's no ephemeral faint stuff

First seen, painted upon

Windows and walls . . . it is yellow as dawn,

After dream, it is marvelous rough,

Coarse as hoar-frost . . . texture no dream

Can invent.

                     Cut my vague dream away !

Moon in New England, O pure moon-beam,

Let it be day.

___________________________

Genevieve Taggard

Remembering Vaughn in New England

Arrow Editions, 1933

RE-READING LYLE GLAZIER ~

" You be Harry Glazier's boy, bean't ye?"

 

Sugaring Off

Easter vacation

  he tramps the Gutter Road

      from Gramp's to Uncle Maurice's

  where the whole family's sugaring

Lynn and Orman and Calvin

  trip metal caps off buckets

      under spiles

  draining the sugar bush

Merle bossing the gathering,

  tub slewing, team

      straining, bobsled runners

  grating on a ledge

Perry shoves another slab

  in the firebox

     "a gallon to the barrel, boys,

  get a move on!"

      Maurice tips the dipper, testing

In the kitchen Aunt Pluma

  boils down a batch for

      fancy sugar cakes:

  stars, hearts, scaled fish

Loyce and Thelma spoon snow

  from a dishpan into ie pie plates

      the thick glaze pulls at the fork

  "a little goes a long ways"

_________________________

Lyle Glazier

Prefatory Lyrics

Coffee House Press, 1991

___________________________________

It was the poet and editor Cid Corman

who had the great ear and tenacity to

promote, publish and persevere

so many fine back country poets —

be it Gary Snyder's early book of poems

Riprap, or Lorine Niedecker's entire workbook,

Theodore Enslin's musical memory, and gone into

the bushes forgotten Lyle Glazier's tramps in the sugar bush,

and this is a mere touching of the Corman radiance.

So few could restore that moment of lyrical movement

and visual care as Lyle Glazier works his tablet in

Prefatory Lyrics.

[ BA ]

SMALL TOWN BUILDER ~

THE HAND OF THE SMALL TOWN BUILDER

  a marvelous book, sometimes found remaindered so act accordingly,

on a disappearing architecture and lifestyle which has no

reason at all to disappear

the text is conscientious and savvy

the photographs are mouth-watering for any builder