The Innisfree Poetry Journal www.innisfreepoetry.org by Julie L. Moore SLEEPY HOLLOW CEMETERY, CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS
Up the path, up the hill, to find
Thoreau, Alcott, Hawthorne, and Emerson. Pinecones and pebbles, even a letter,
Adorn Thoreau's grave like flowers.
My daughter snaps pictures of me, My warm hand resting on his cold stone,
Repercussions of his reflections
Reverberating beneath my ribs. Behind us, on a bench,
Out of the blue like a thrush’s tune,
A man reads aloud my t-shirtDeclaring, "I cabin Thoreau,"
Asks like a congenial host,
Where we live, where I teach, why we visit. Then we stumble, together, upon discovery:
He knows our small Ohio town,
My obscure, religious school, his ex-wife a graduate, And lo and behold, he is Thoreau—
Re-enactor for the Concord Museum—
Pronouncing the name "Thorough" like everyone else in Concord
(The rest of America says it wrong),
Revealing that Emerson noted his friend's name Fit his character like a calling,
Like a voice in sync with the rhythm of life,
For he was a "thorough fellow."EMMA With all dear Emma's little faults, she is an excellent creature . . . . [S]he has qualities which may be trusted; she will never lead anyone really wrong . . . — Jane Austen, Emma If Aristotle is right and we are what we repeatedly do, or Annie Dillard, and how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, then let me spend each moment like Emma, my neighbor's yellow Lab, who greets me, every time I walk along the road in front of her yard, with hospitality, running up to the invisible fence between her and me, holding in her teeth her blue bowl as if to announce, Look what I've got! tail wagging, body expressing the same exuberance of a child welcoming her birthday, as if she's a balloon about ready to pop. That’s what I'm talking about: Verve. Combined with time to stick one's nose into all the business of the earth. Smell those roses. Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication |