Winter in Old Town, Maine: 2 Poems

These revised poems Copyright © 2010 by Michael Smetzer

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Sunday Morning, January 1

 

Outside the drizzle finds oak rags

        solemn on their limbs,

and sets against the radio hymns

        its own rough-measured drops.

 

The toaster pops its little plume

        that lingers as I drip and stop

the honey spout, sweet almost-lips

        I circle with my finger.

 

(first published in Mostly Maine)

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Spring Comes to Old Town, Maine

  

The March rain is colder growing,

snow will fall on ice tonight.

Summer thoughts are huddled low in

nests of lint with summer’s mice.

 

Who will sing cuccu, cuccu?

 

Old panes cackle, house beams buckle,

melt waters freeze below the spouts.

Snow squalls dance with bones of maple

as this gray equinox blacks out.

 

And no one sings cuccu, cuccu.

 

(first published in Mostly Maine)