A HUG FROM AUNT LILA

Asked by an editor to offer an example of the New England, Maine, culture behind my poetry I offered a description of my surprise when my Aunt Lila hugged me as family and friends gathered for my mother's funeral. When the account was published an illustration was added. Obviously the artist belonged to a different culture, or a more recent one, and I was depicted as a small boy. The poem , written later, was a response to the illustration. The poem was published, in a slightly different version, in a journal with the unlikely title of The League of Laboring Poets. As a current non-event I should add that , in  Poland Spring, as far as we could sense, the only earthquake was on the six o'clock news.

  Aunt Lila

They asked for an example

of that Down East Yankee reticence

they’d heard about, some incident —

Well, I said, you could do worse

than hearing what Aunt Lila did

at mother’s funeral: Lila, the youngest,

the last survivor of grandmother

Chute’s five ,children.

I can see her waiting, thin, fragile, 

outside the church: stepping up 

to give me a sudden brief hug,

ππmumbling a few words, then

releasing me. I can’t recall

any family member, mother, sister, 

aunt or uncle ever making such 

a display before.

A shy boy, a taciturn, loving aunt?

The boy, born long before

the dawn of this hug-hug, kiss-kiss age,

was a grown man with children

of his own and that embrace is

what he remembers best from a sad day 

half a century away. 

            [much later I remembered}

I remember Aunt Lilla as a woman,

tall, thin, brittle, not as father did, as

his young sister who helped him care for

grandfather's milk cows, pigs, chickens.

She had married Everett Bean whose

summer business was speedboat rides for tourists,

his Chris-Crafts all varnish, polish, and shine.

I was given a wind-up, painted model

of his boats. His were shark slim, cedar,

mahogany, and brass. A ten minute

one dollar ride always ended with

a sharp high speed turn, a shock of spray

and shrieks of surprise. Then the boat

wallowing, the engine's deep throated chuckle.

Uncle Everett must have had more to offer

than the thrill of a fast boat ride. Women,

specially the young pretty ones, sat up front

with him. Then, one summer, he took up

with one of our guests, a single lady

from Philadelphia who rented a cabin

for the summer. That fall they left together. 

One morning Everett dropped by for coffee.

"Some storm last night", he said. "Lightning

hit a big pine behind the camp. Both Martha

and me sat right up in bed." We were in

the hotel kitchen. My mother was there.

It was about then that "the lady from

Philadelphia" became just "that woman".

If I'd payed more attention I'd have learned sooner

women as well as men enjoy sex. The paint

on my model boat peeled. Then the spring broke.

AUNT ANNE: PART TWO

When I post a poem on my blog it doesn't "feel" published but, according to most editors it has been published and is, therefore, not acceptable for publication in their journal. If I worked in an office and posted it on the bulletin board, would that count as published? Oh well—

Of course all editors, quite properly, ask that any item reprinted from their publication be credited so I should I should admit I neglected to indicate, in my last post, that the poem, Sisters, appeared in The Puckerbrush Review (Fall, 2010) but with the name Delano, misprinted.

Today I want to add one more Aunt Anne poem. This one appeared some years ago in The Beloit Poetry Journal. The local pictured is the farm near Kimball's Corner in Naples, Maine the farm Uncle George called "Limbo". I imagine Anne there, near the end of her days, after George's death. I don't know if she had a cat or if the grass was unmown but my cousin Bill, who spent many summer days at Limbo with his Grampa and Granny, says he recognizes Anne on the step, down to the persistent cigarette ash.

Aunt Anne Puts The Cat Out

For The Last time

She stood on the door rock

of granite hand quarried

two generations back.

Only the cat’s white tail shows

as it follows its trail

through uncut grass

to the barn.

She hesitates just

as the breeze pauses,

tipping her head to hear

the sigh of yard tree tops

relaxing. One cricket

of the chorus start too soon

and, embarrassed, stops.

Sounds so soft the scuff

of carpet slippers

on stone drowns them.

Her constant cough’s so small

the pendant ash of the cigarette

pinched in her thin lips

still won’t fall.

Her hands, spotted, knobbed

and veined, no longer

need to find each other

to be at rest: no longer 

pick at faded flowers

on her cotton dress.

AUNT ANNE'S TURN

     My first substantial collection of poems was UNCLE GEORGE:Poems of a Maine boyhood. It was well received and I had enjoyed producing it, both the poems and the wood cuts that illustrated the poems. When my cousin told me he would give me the collection of diaries kept my George's wife, Anne, my mother's sister,  I was elated: here was a possible source for another collection. They did inspire poems but I think you can see as you read them why they did not inspire a collection. As the first poem tells you, the diary began a year and a month before my birth.

          Aunt Anne Begins Her Diary

Jan. 1, 1925: decided today to keep a diary.

So there will be a record

good or bad of this passing life.

Will I have anything to say?

It may be enough if it

makes me remember, tomorrow,

the trivia of today.

Can I call what I do “something”?

Writing may be more important

than what I write about.

A list of unpleasant things —

   Work on Saturday

   Sewing tickets at the laundry

   Cold weather

   Mr. Kardish

The order of the poems is, as well as I can remember, in the order of composition. They were sometiems years apart which accounts for the repetition.

              The Diary

The twenty years fit easily

each in one slim booklet. 

Aunt Anne gave equal weight

to each item with hardly any 

lines to read between.

George and Bobby caught a fish.

Bought dress material at Porteus.

Lizzy writes from Florida.

George died today.

No notice of Uncle George’s death

beyond these words as terse

as brittle as rose petals pressed

between the pages.

George died today.

Perhaps that was 

all there was to say.

         Aunt Anne’s Diaries

Seventeen slim volumes

as spare as winter trees.

Warm for this time of year.

Lizzy wrote from Florida.

Weather. Names only

of neighbors who called.

Bought material from Porteous.

George’s new teeth don’t fit.

Shopping lists. Threads

of a life worn thin.

We let the furnace go out today (May 15).

George and Bobby caught a fish.

The blank remainders of each page filled

with wash worn silences hung out to dry.

Tue. August 14. Lizzy died

half past twelve today.

The record ends. A life so nearly spent

no surprise remains.

Went to ride with Bill in AM.

Watched old yr out and new yr in.

Tomorrow will be no surprise

even if the sun won’t rise.

Sisters

Aunt Anne had come

to live with mother

for the summer. The operation

had been delayed

too long.

I read the short flat

line-a-day entries

in Aunt Anne’s diary.

Very hot.

Delano and Olive visit.

Lizzy had a bad day.

How well these almost blank 

revealing pages

echo the snow-bleached fields

outside my window. (I’d been

many miles away.)

How well they echo

long empty afternoons,

those hot breathless

August nights

they waited through.

Lizzy died: 2PM today.

I was miles away.