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She Sees Beauty - originally posted 5/27/2008

In bare oak branches against a winter sky.
In shapes of thawing snow drifts.

In first cardinal announcing his claim.
In paired osprey on last year's nest.
Needs housekeeping, she says.

In shapes of summer clouds.
In colors of lichens on a fallen log.

In sandy ripples after ebbing tide.
In harvest moon, full and bright. . .

I see her seeing beauty.

by David Stuntz of Brunswick, Maine
March, 2007

Poem (song) made in Maine, mostly in Brooklin and Sedgwick - originally posted 3/30/2008

Oh the sea is full of fish, my boys,
And the fish are made of meat:
If the tourists fail
Or your wife's in jail
You can still catch something to eat.

Oh the sea is full of fish, my boys,
And it's full of lobsters too:
If the condos stop
Or you ding your prop
You can still get something to do.

By Richard Lynn, East Hampton, New York

Poem for Moosehead Lake - originally posted 3/10/2008

The loons are calling my name today,

off to Prong Pond for a sighting I pray.

The full moon it'll be so maybe I'll see,

a bull moose struttin’ and ruttin’ for me.

With Benjamin in tow on Lazy Tom Bog,

please let that be a bear in the distant fog.

With a mountain guide named Marc holding my hand,

I'm off to Thoreau's favorite Native land,

And up we go to Kineo Mountain,

let's hope the eagle soars for then we'll be counting,

the many wild things and creatures we'll see,

could this be the place to set me free.

by Christine Mary Bibeault of Pascoag, Rhode Island

I wrote this piece just after I experienced from my kayak a surprise attack on a loon chick as its mother was giving flight take-off lessons. Happily, the mother rushed to the rescue and after perching awhile on a branch above me the eagle left the lake, and I got this picture!
- Nancy Prince

The Eagle - originally featured 11/26/2007

From out of the north over the lake
He comes.
Widespread wings in flight, white head looking low,
He spies his prey.
Loon chick wings whirling on the waves, learning lessons of flight.
Suddenly swooping , dropping down, talons poised,
He strikes.
Water churns, loons scream.
Young fledgling founders, tumbling underwater.
Loon mother displays, rising upon the waves,
Lifting outstretched wings
In warning.
Daunted lord of the skies abandons the lake,
Proudly perching high above on barren branch,
Watching,
Waiting,
Wanting,
Bold and beautiful beast of the blue.

Poem and photos by Nancy Prince of Wilton, Maine

Every walk has its own rhythm and every landscape its own heartbeat. This is especially true on the walk below, in an eerie, edgy setting near a Maine city yet far away. The place will eventually get you dancing on a mile of boardwalk – to bog music

Drumming - originally featured 11/12/2007

The Saco Heath
The Saco Heath
pitch pine above and
peat bog beneath

Red leaf falling on
a wet brown log
dragonfly sitting in
the belly of a frog

Flower fluff flying in
a pink autumn breeze
dark moose moving
in a cluster of trees

Thumping down the boardwalk
curving round a stump
skipping over holes and
tripping on a bump

Wild rhododendron
kisses Labrador tea
we must wear blaze
orange for visibility

The Saco Heath
The Saco Heath
pitch pine above and
peat bog beneath

by Linda Kirk, Scarborough, Maine
Copyright Linda Kirk, 2007

Why I Love My Grandparents' Maine House - originally featured 10/8/2007

The sand tickling my toes
Going out to breakfast almost every Sunday morning
Tubing with my cousins every single day
Taking a boat ride around the whole lake
Making sand castles on our mini beach
Walking every day to the grocery store
Bring the dogs along while we walk
Staying out in the bunk house every night
When it is time to go to sleep
Waking up to everyone's faces
Jumping off the dock into the water
Jumping on the water trampoline into mid air
Going out for ice cream when we get the time
Going to Sea Dogs games almost every time we are at the house
Seeing everyone's faces, and knowing I am safe
Watching the Fourth of July fireworks altogether
Seeing the big hill, then I know we are there

Poem by Nicole Blanchette of Medfield, Massachusetts. Submitted by her grandfather, Robert Griffiths

Bald Mountain: Sacred Space - originally featured 3/5/2007
1
A summit is a sacred space,
but what about this, this single, perfect
red maple leaf edged with gold
splayed in the muddy trail?

2
Sky gods have always clashed with mountain gods,
clouds shrouding snowy peaks,
thunderbolts striking the heights,
charged ions forking through bedrock, splintering trees,
wind flagging the gnomic pines.
Deep rumblings within earth’s bowels, orogeny,
forced faulted stone into the upper air,
a wall to stop the rain, a place
to rest an ark. We climb,
thinking this rock is something stable,
thinking all it takes is the right clothing
to withstand the elements.

3
Tibetan shamanists revere certain mountains
as the bodies of powerful goddesses,
anatomy become geography: throat
a waterfall, navel a cave, head a high lake.
There are secret ways to approach her,
practices that lead to enlightenment.

The object is not to summit but
to circle the peak ten times.

Our low hills worn pebbles in comparison,
yet even here we imagine how
under a tapestried bedspread
two voluptuous women stretch their legs
into the harbor, shift nearer in their sleep.

4
Across the mountain’s flank, every twig,
every branch, every tree
rimed with frost, illusion
carried in fingers of ice. It won’t last.
Nothing will last, the wind insists.
But isn’t that what beauty is?

About this poem: This poem is part of a small collection of 11 poems, Bald and Ragged Mountains: the Poetry of Place, that I wrote for Coastal Mountains Land Trust in celebration of the two mountains that we are working to protect in the Camden Hills. - Kristen Lindquist, Camden, Maine (the above photo is also by Kristen Lindquist)

The Branch Pile - originally featured 2/12/2007

During the winter I am up long before the sun. Each morning I push back the window quilt over the bay window to look for early birds. Just before sunrise the first ones arrive to what they hope is a well-stocked feeding station. If I've been paying attention there's plenty of seed and suet waiting for them. I
The chickadees are always grateful for a freshly filled feeder. Before I leave the feeding station they start landing in branches beside the feeder. Thanks for seed...seed...seed! Two and three winters ago I had a chickadee that tapped on the window if the feeders were empty. He didn't stop tapping until I went out. Tossing a cup of seed out the window wasn't good enough. He wanted the feeders filled. And being the well-trained feeder of birds that I am, I obliged. The bluejays aren't as polite. NOW! NOW! NOW! And what do I get as a thanks for filling the feeder? They throw seed to the ground while looking for the perfect sunflower seed.

We had the branches trimmed from the old and dying maple tree in front of the house. Soon, we'll lose the rest of the tree. The tree service came on a snowy day. They piled the smaller branches neatly on the lawn and let the larger branches fall where they may. The wet snow continued to fall until the temperature dropped. Before we could move the branches to the brush pile at the edge of the woods the snow firmly froze them to the ground. The pile of branches has become a safe haven for the birds. Juncos and finches would rather search for seed I toss into the branches than go to a large pile of seed on the open ground. Once they've had their fill these small birds will perch on a branch and sleep in the sun. They're safe from the hawks that hunt near the feeders. A few fly away when a hawk is nearby but most sit completely still until it leaves.

There's more in the branch pile than birds. Look closely; you'll see tunnels made by mice. An ermine came to visit a few times. He'd dart through the trees across the road, stop at the top of the snow bank, dash across the road and run into the branch pile. It hasn't been here in the last week. I think the barred owl is responsible for his disappearance.

When the snow melts in the spring we'll move the branch pile out back to its intended place. Until then, we'll enjoy the all of its visitors and goings on.

Copyright Robin Follette 2007 (reprints welcome by permission)
- photos and essay by Robin Follette, Talmadge, Maine

Water Wheel - originally featured 1/1/2007

the naked pond
shivers in the cold

ducks
rest and fish;
uninvited;
migratingly bold

the seasons cascade change
upon the waters
autumn thresholds winter
winter, spring

which then hosts the return
of birds with summering wing

who’ll raise their young
in the wet nursery of the pond
migrating south come autumn
exploring what lies beyond
another cycle

a spiral without end.

the pond will freeze
thaw
deplete,
renew and mend.

when the world was created
God intended
all things living

would be reincarnated

thus, all that ever was, remains
in recycled forms
ponds
that are also clouds,
tears,
oceans,
rains.
- C. Anne Lozier of Buxton, Maine

Sea Lights Along A Summer Shore - originally featured 7/31/2006

A sunset station, and below me whirls
Against the foreland face a flood-tide wealth
Of weed and wood. A dock-post's lantern hurls
A javelin on foam crests splintered. Stealth

And patience shape a heron's double catch
In waters spilling at an inlet's throat,
Like dippers, which the constellations hatch
And sprinkle star specks where bay-bounties float.

To the horizon's orange wed the glints
Of mainmast lamps, and from wake-heaves their guise
Decreases to a smoother plain with hints
Of lichen lights and flicks of fireflies.

- by Franklin Marshall, Simsbury, Connecticut

As a creative person, I value creation. Which leads me to Maine, the nature in Maine, and its relationship to myself as a created human being. From my youth, I have been fortunate to intuit the significance of the natural world and its relationship to myself and been able to write about it. I have learned that the sounds of the natural world are my familiars as the sound of automobiles, television and outboard motors is not. I have learned that the colors of nature are more real than the colors of man-made clothing. And, over time, fed by the silence in nature that is rejected by most of the human social world, I have grown closer to my nature, my creative source. So I am concerned about the natural environment in Maine. The following poem is written from an experience as a younger man that occurred in a Maine pond where a human being could think. It is double-spaced to emphasize the different nature of time needed to go in-depth to our original, first place. The first place, nature, is my home, our home. - Tom Fallon, Rumford, Maine

In the first place

I walk, slow, a dirt road, in the sun light -

I hear sand under my feet -

I see a field, wildflowers, in the sun light -

I hear a bee's soft rasp in the air -

The sun is hot on my face -

A breeze touches my body with heat -

Sand, under my feet, soft -

I walk, slow, off the road into tall grasses -

The grasses move, rustle -

I walk in the shadows of green leafed trees -

A breeze touches my body with cool air -

The grass rustles -

I walk, slow, into the dirt road in the sun light -

I hear sand under my feet -

The field, wildflowers, in the sun light -

I hear sand, soft -

I walk, slow, the dirt road -

The sun is hot -

I hear a bee's soft rasp -

A breeze touches my face -

I walk, slow -

I hear, sand -

Natural Friendships - originally featured 1/30/2006
"Conservation sometimes comes at you from strange directions. Once, driving from the West Branch across the Shirley Road in my friend Andrew’s somewhat worn, somewhat uninspected Subaru wagon shortly after 2 a.m. Andrew treated me to what I call the John Muir mile. Scottish conservationist Muir would routinely walk with friends in the Sierra and take more than an hour to cover a mile of linear distance. His fascination with everything natural in his path slowed progress to a crawl. To his old friends this seemed a normal part of the Muir experience, to his new acquaintances the walk seemed like an exercise in patience.

"Andrew practiced a modern version of the Muir mile in a typical Andrew manner. Just as you thought you were making progress toward your final destination to lay your head down and contemplate tomorrow’s activity, the car would rapidly decelerate next to a wetland or under the feathery crown of thuja occidentalis (Northern White Cedar) to marvel at the size of the tree or further muck through the wetland looking for the a diminutive gray tree frog.

"As the seasons passed I became accustomed to the likelihood that at any time progress would be halted for a glimpse of a snapping turtle nesting site or a tree with an active nuthatch cavity. We once stood along the shore of Fourth Machias Lake watching a red-breasted nuthatch enter and exit its home in a poplar for nearly an hour. Can you imagine anyone sitting for more than an hour watching a single bird species fly in and out of a nesting cavity? But that was an outing with Andrew.

"These natural history 'lessons' were not limited to the woods of Maine. Moving water equally captured our imaginations and progress at times was equally slow. Our enthusiasm for the Maine woods and its waterways had no boundaries because we were beginning to understand the connection between humans, rivers and land. We once sat on a pile of cedar logs above the confluence of the Big Black River and the St. John River discussing for several hours the dynamics of logging practices and their impact on the rivers, streams and brooks.

"Two months ago I stood alone at the same spot and looked over an area that had grown back in my 10-year absence from the St. John River. I thought long and hard about forestry and ecology, but those thoughts drifted away with the northwesterly winds. What remained was a canoeist pondering his own impact on the woods and waters of Maine wishing his paddling partner was there to discuss the next step."
- Jonathan Milne, Waterville, ME