Mary

I don't think I've posted this one before. My friend Mary is a Scotswoman, now living in Massachusetts, who likes to ski. We were two of the Radical Women of Door County back in the 70's. I wrote a series of poems about a few of the women I knew then. This one is Mary's. She always reminds me of my favorite things.

Mary gentle hands to touch
Blackberry a wilding bramble
Butternut a sapling springing
Hundred feet a hundred years.

Silent snow is soft and cold
And deep along the river shallows
Down she follows, glistening rocks
An ice-glow road of full moon tears

There she bends in witchery
Winding, wending, smooth on hickory,
Out beyond the time of flowers
There beyond the leaves.

Melting rushing laughing valley
Springtime moss, a sunspring traveling
Ah, my Mary, bluets, eyelets,
Owlets feather victory.

Laze in summer, lost in grasses
High and whispering wisp-tops, gathering
Daisies, hand-held buttercups warming
Full and whole and now come home.