Poetry: The Space Between

    The space between The night and day The middle ground that does not stay   In the day, the shining sun pierces through my squinting eyes. Heat burns my thoughts and melts my integrity, as my body slowly fries.   In the night, the moon does naught, to warm or light my soul As the canvas covers all leaving me blind and lost in the cold.   I cannot live, in blinding brilliance, or disparaging darkness.   I prefer those perfect minutes when the world falls to a still when the cicadas are in bed but before t … (read more)

(Trail Around Middlebury (TAM) – Chipman Hill – 4/7/20)   I sing these trails of my homeland, with elegiac footfalls  on layers of fallen foliage. A green-yellow striped garden snake  slithers and crinkles over dried leaves then freezes in camouflage.  We … (read more)

Unlocking But it is not always quiet here. Things go on while we sleep the sleep of soldiers. Ancient branches crack and splinter into dust. Large wings snap open in spring like carpets splayed out over the railing. Granite splits apart at the seams and g … (read more)

We have all become our dogs it seems, Stirring at first light To these Groundhog Day mornings, All is the same and all is different So eager for that first walk The chance of possibility, We sniff the fecund smells Of earth, lichen Moss, We give tree-dist … (read more)

Consolation Don’t expect my friend Karl Lindholm to be sitting next to you at the end of a close basketball game. The clock winding down to red, double zeros. Don’t be surprised if you find him, across the gym, near the free nosebleed seats, chatting and … (read more)

I could be thinking of almost anyone Today it’s the midfielder who has to say Goodbye to his teammates, without   Having played half of the season. Who has to wave a virtual farewell. Without a high-five. Touching   Sticks at the end of a game. A sign Tha … (read more)

MIDDLEBURY — The Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society in Middlebury will join the local chapter of SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) to present an important and powerful poetry reading and discussion with Rajnii Eddins on Monday, March 16. E … (read more)

I’m running for the first time for First Constable in my town of Cornwall   Vermont. Sue Johnson, our Town Clerk, tells me the duties are non-existent,   if not minimal. In fact, she says, the Select Board doesn’t allow the constable   to do anything. No … (read more)

MIDDLEBURY — Ted Scheu, by his own count, has written thousands of poems in his 65 years. The prolific writer, educator and children’s poet has a flair for putting words together. And he playfully notes that “Ted Scheu” rhymes with “poetry guy.” Well, the … (read more)

Winter’s Delicate Solitude   This is the closing-in time of year: The weary earth rests, leans back and retires; Pine-quilted hills guard the brink of the world, Horizons now strangely attainable. The sky yawns, heavy-lidded and colored With sleep, and lo … (read more)

Winter Solstice   The dry rustle of leaves is what I remember, and the lateness of the hour — moon yet to appear. Something ending, something about to begin. Raven makes a different sound than owl, makes a different sound than snow falling not quite silen … (read more)

Not enough mud to say it’s mud season yet. That’s in March, April   and May. Just enough for the deer to leave a good impression.   On the dirt road. Among the spent shells. And someone   else’s glistening boot tracks. The turkeys slip here,   too, losing … (read more)

In Whom We Live and Move and Have our Being   It’s October Snow geese fly far above the trees in sleek silence. Canada geese circle noisily above the stubby cornfield. White pines drop their needles through the clear air transforming the forest floor into … (read more)

Hillsides ablaze with color  orchards open for picking  offering fresh cider and doughnuts.  Harvest dinners, farmers markets  crisp cool nights under down quilts,  at every turn a new glory to behold.  That’s October in Vermont.  Miriam Hard  Middlebury 

My woodpile ain’t pretty, bent, forked, not sawn square short, long, fat and gnarly like an old wizard’s hair.   Stacked cut colors aren’t even ends dapple the rack tan, red and yellow and old cuts are black.   My firewood looks like me dry, wrinkled and … (read more)