Page 6
The Clarion Literary Supplement
LOSh: Km A SECOM)
To the 1974 summer staff
YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly
Ten of us slipped away from dishwashers
ejecting hoi silver and racks of plates,
long halls of luggage gripped u itli smiles
to a meadow off the parkway.
Riding the asphalt zipper, we peeled back
ridges of full trees, straining to see
the lace of whitewater, peering into coves
that flashed by the windows like color slides.
By a wide, graveled path, jeep trail
gullied with deep, familiar ruts,
a swirl of paintbrush, trillium, and vulgaris
flourished in the same fool of sod:
next summer, a beer can here, or weeds
crushed into footprints, each blade jerking
back like the hands of an old clock.
The meadow’s high grass swished
over our boots, the sound of sponges
under feet. We spun a circle of nylon
cocoons and packs, laid out an aurora
of bags in plastic liners, squeezed close
to shield ourselves from the dew.
From Bearpen Gap. the thick morning
urged us toward the Graveyard Fields,
a story spread out in scrub trees and balds:
Long before the logging camps and trestles,
before overlooks numbered on folding maps,
the evidence lay in freak graves of spruce
and fir cracked loiv by windblasts.
but fifty years ago a fire
whirled the slopes, sucking up topsoil
and spewing out streams of dull ash,
trout bellying u[> to the ocean.
Fresh day lilies yawned like orange funnels;
yeslerday s drooped in shriveled fingers.
We lay on our backs, listening, cold epitaphs
rushing by; we could have scooped up stories
and poured them in our ears, but let them sivirl
slowly on that stone terrace, circling once,
drawing to the edge then like ourselves
squeezing close for that second they slipped
through the opening in the boulders
and were gone.
Ken Chamlee
Winter Haiku
Couples kiss, garnished
in fur against the snow, bright
as holly berries.
Frost that blemishes
my early morning window
flees the eye of noon.
* \
David Drury
\n I nn \i>
ll(dj (I cfiroiisel ^lootl lull, hut llial mis (dl.
Some Ilf llie liin neon liullis ii inked ill llie giiiniig cnm ds.
I H'l’illx proud sliilliiiiis held high llieir gres and hriiii n \lirlliii hi'il hciiils.
lieil saddles n ilh golden lassies ilisplini-i! Iii i‘iil\ Miiiiig riders.
('lererh couceiileit i iiiiliiiners hliisleil lunnliir limes nf niirlh.
Ilalj a i iiriiiisi‘1 hoiicil anil i rii-il: ils ji>\ hud itieil.
Sniiislied pieces of jagged l olored glass ln\ in llie slill durkness.
I K entV color-less, lou ered heads inoiirned life-less hriil. i'ii liiidies.
The sriirlel paini peeled from the chililreii's seals n iili a riinreroiis hnnuer.
The brassy green ring srreaiiied in ;he sileiu e In he luiii hed.
llalj i>l me stood tall: bill lhal was all.
Half of me boned and cried: ni-\ joy hail died.
Outside I riuliated warmth and the In inkle in niy eve hinled of ^aity.
My shattered dreams severed my heart irilh their serrated edge of loneliness.
III i-nly smiling years Id jterched upon my ipiiisi-peileslal.
('.racks splintered through the plaster I'd so carefidly placed my grin ii iiliin.
I irenty chihl-like years Id played icilh every lov anil ^ame.
\ly toys Here all broken: niy innoienie slianiel(‘ss
My boisterous laughter blasted cheers and glee.
My soul screanied. "1 ouch Me!
Lisa French
T -MM '
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B & B Feed Store
Photograph by Cherl Harrison