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.