Lucretia Laing Ensworth

Lucretia Laing Ensworth

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I will call you Lucy, my grandmother, mother of my father. Your blood runs in mine, but you are entirely a cypher to me.

You died three years before I was born. I do not know the color of your eyes or the color of your favorite dress. I do not know the things that bring you joy or the things that cause you pain. I do not know timbre of your voice or the cadence of your laugh. I do not know if you do laugh, but surely hope that you do, that the landscape of your life does bring you some delight.

You knew your grandmother. You were married seven months before she died. You know that she made sugar cookies, that she bore great grief with resilience and grace, that her grey hair was once raven black, that she danced a fine Highland fling. I know these things, too, because your cousin wrote of her and told her stories. I have met her in my imagination and she has become a part of my remembered family.

But no one has told me your stories. No one has told me if you bake or sew or paint or dance. No one has told me of the hardships you have endured or of the graces you have offered. Oh, Lucy! What kind of mother were you? Was my father a surprise when he came out from you when you were beginning your fifth decade? A good surprise? Did he try you? Did he exhaust you? Did he make you laugh? Did he make you proud?

Are you quiet like me, a person of few words, of words carefully chosen and always meant? Do you love, as I do, a bracing morning and ice on the pond, a tumbling brook or a faint trail through deep woods, the magic of poetry or the enchantment of music? Do you love God? Do you understand that all you are and all you have is an extraordinary gift to be treasured, to be received with gratitude and shared with joy?

I call you Lucy now, of my own whim, because I do not know you. But when I do know you, when you too become part of my remembered family, when your body and your spirit take shape in my imagination and in my heart, I will know what to call you.

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November Winds

November Winds

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November winds flail slender grey branches
glittering umber leaves tenaciously hanging on
arms of the hoary birch swirling
in a frenetic autumn dance

November winds roil turgid blue green waters
flecked foam frolicking down the bay
rhythmic eruptions of brilliant white
under a steel-grey sky

November winds drive the ebbing tide
battering sun-bleached boulders unflinching
as surging splashes of splendiferous spray
caress their sea-worn shoulders

November winds rouse my listless spirit
shouting the glories of an untameable world
wild and wonderful beautiful and holy
still and ever my home

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The Kick

The Kick

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smash crash shatter crinkle
o glorious sound
plate glass
exploding splintering scattering
into seven thousand
sparkling shards

it came from my foot
the doer of the deed
beloved soccer ball
hexagonal panels black and white
launched in a graceful arc
off the scrubby green grass

it was a beautiful boot
consummate corner kick
soaring from sidewalk’s edge
past the cherry tree and
his stretched out arms
into the doomed window

he was there of course
my sao paulo buddy
constant companion
doing our best
to best each other
in math or football

Mrs. Kocsis
called him “Dick”
called me “Tater”
telling us that one day
we would rule the world
or. at least, her sixth-grade classroom

it was our fathers
who brought us together
grad students they in
psychology and microbiology
planting their families
in married students’ housing

bound by love
of the beautiful game
of quadratic equations and binomials
we bridged divides of
language and culture
the very best of friends

so we were there
that fateful afternoon
sharing the joy
if not the shame
(that was all mine)
of that most magnificent kick

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True unity

True unity

Hegseth: “An entire generation of admirals and liberals were told to parrot the insane fallacy our diversity is our strength. We know that unity is our strength.”

If you read your Bible, Pete, you will understand that true unity is borne out of diversity, not uniformity.

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Take my hand

Take my hand

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(After watching two adults and a child walking down the spit of sand off the Deer Isle Causeway exposed by the receding tide)

Take my hand
as we walk the sandy strand
left behind by ebbing tide
tickling toes with mussel shells
while licking the salt off our lips
wholly enveloped in the unspeakable wonder
of this holy moment

Take my hand
as we stand transfixed
beneath the moonless sky
silently counting the countless stars
while casting our spirits into the night
utterly gobsmacked by the trackless void
of an overwhelming emptiness

Take my hand
as we sit enraptured
attent the twirling dancer
improbably poised on pointed toe
her hand making heart-rending entreaty
transported therewith to a rapturous haven
of ineffable grace

Take my hand
as we come to the table
praying our thanks and desires
bearing the burden of unabated dismay
over multiplied evils and calumnies
holding fast to the solitary hope
of an unwavering faith

Take my hand
as I lie in my bed
shadows slowly subsuming
remembering an awe-filled existence
all of it vouchsafed to you
wanting nothing now but the touch
of your tender hand

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Joel’s Hole

Joel’s Hole

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Wisps of airy white vapor float over restless waters. From behind a undulating green wall of spruce and cedar., the orange crescent of the rising sun makes its morning appearance haloed by diaphanous clouds bathed in iridescent light. The lingering echoes of a lone loon’s preternatural cry hang suspended in air and in time.

Behind me, a single sentinel spruce towers over the rest of the tiny sparsely-treed island, grey granite boulders tumbling into the shallows at its feet. Sitting half a dozen yards offshore, I lean over the gelid gunwale of the boat and dip my hand into the boreal waters of the lake, wanting to join my spirit to its spirit.

There will be time yet to pin a slimy and wriggling leech to the hook of my tungsten jig, time yet to cast my fluorocarbon line out over the cobalt waters, time yet to drag the baited pink and yellow lure slowly along the graveled bottom, ever alert for the slightest resistance, the subtlest change in line pressure, time yet to jerk the rod, set the hook, and experience once again, but always as if for the first time, the exhilarating rush of a dance with an exuberant walleye.

But now, I am subsumed in this moment, in this place, emptied of care and ego and desire, the boundaries between water and loon and rock and spruce and sun and cloud and me blurred and meaningless. And yet, in this hallowed place, sitting in a boat at Joel’s’ Hole on Dog Lake, I feel most assuredly, most authentically, most happily, myself.

Land of the silver birch
Home of the beaver
Where still the mighty moose
Wanders at will
Blue lake and rocky shore
I will return once more
Boom didi boom boom
Boom didi boom boom
Boom didi boom boom boom

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Cassandra

Cassandra

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O Cassandra, Cassandra
You speak only the truth
But no one believes you
Preferring instead the
Balm of our ignorance

Unheeding your warnings
Only sycophants esteeming
We turn a blind eye while
Clinging to the lie
That flatters

The sky is falling the
Little chicken said
But what if it were true
Falling sky
Rising ocean

We paint our prophets as
Little chickens whose
Strident squawking so
Rudely intrudes on
Contented lives

Our soothsayers we judge as
Silly women spouting
Nonsense while good sense
Cries out as if in the wilderness
Unheard

O Cassandra, Cassandra
You speak only the truth
But no one believes you
Preferring instead the
Balm of our ignorance

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Nuance

Nuance

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When I was a boy, my father took me hiking.
When I was a boy, my father took me bird-watching.
When I was a boy, my father took me swimming.
When I was a boy, my father took me sailing.
When I was a boy, my father took me canoeing.
When I was a boy, my father took me to church.

I am who I am — a lover of mountains and birds and water, a sailor, a canoeist, a Christian — because my father took me. Because my father took me. Because my father.

Because my father took me hiking. Just my father and me.
Because my father took me bird-watching. Just my father and me.
Because my father took me swimming. Just my father and me.
Because my father took me sailing. Just my father and me.
Because my father took me canoeing. Just my father and me.
Because my father took me to church.
        But not just my father and me. Much bigger than that.
        And not just church. Much bigger than that.

My father’s life revealed a passion for something inscrutable, but deeply personal, something worthy to be desired, to be pursued, with all of one’s heart and mind and strength, the heartbeat at the center of the universe, the artist from whose hand all beauty derives, the tender teacher who reveals what is treasure and what is dross, the generous giver whose life is a pouring out and who calls us to a life of pouring out, a pouring out that leaves us, not empty, but overflowing.

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