Maine Humanities Council

Take Heart is edited and introduced by Maine Poet Laureate Wesley McNair, and produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

Once a seasonal resident of Bristol, Sarah Jane Wolf-Wade has lived in that town year-round for fourteen years—long enough to develop the perspective she offers in today’s poem.

They All Come Back

By Sarah Jane Woolf-Wade

The girl who shone in Broadway shows

was born here in the village on Fourth of July

and a Rockette who danced in the chorus line

came back to raise babies ten miles away.

The clamdigger brothers, working two tides a day,

sculpted like statues, left town in their prime.

The doctor brother returned to build homes,

the recovering teacher now fishes the sea.

The stenos, hairdressers, building inspectors

now all snuggle into the arms of the village.

People who married, those who traveled abroad

nestle into the homesteads built by their fathers.

Some born in the town migrate south in the winter,

reappear with songbirds early in spring.

The city-based clerk breathes deep of Maine air

as she crosses the Kittery bridge heading North.

Up on the hill among all the gravestones

lie the man shot dead in a place far from home

and a faraway baby who lived only a day.

Aunt Emma says, as she picks up a stitch,

“Our folks, they all come back in the end.”

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2008 by Sarah Jane Woolf-Wade. Reprinted from Down the Bristol Road, Snow Drift Press, 2008, by permission of Sarah Jane Woolf-Wade. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 207-228-8263.

Take Heart is edited and introduced by Maine Poet Laureate Wesley McNair, and produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

Phillip Booth

The late Philip Booth of Castine had his own way with free verse, creating his music from the repetition of words and their placement on the page. Today’s poem, about the realities of old age, provides a striking example.

Old

by Phillip Booth

Old, the old know cause to be bitter:

they’ve seen

their children (as if they could tell)

insist they are growing deaf:

they’ve found

old friends invent new friends

to prove the old don’t matter:

they have hardened

themselves to let memory rust out;

with only themselves to hold on to,

they have grown

beyond any surprise;

to get their way

they have aged again

to be children:

beyond control, they have gained

control

of every last life save their own.

They know it can get no better.

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 1990 by Philip Booth. Reprinted from Selves, Penguin Publishing, 1990, by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 207-228-8263.

Take Heart is edited and introduced by Maine Poet Laureate Wesley McNair, and produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance

Mekeel McBride lives in Kittery and teaches in the MFA program at the University of New Hampshire. In her poem she shows us what we have missed in the winter trees we observe every day.

Where Inspiration Has Learned a Thing or Two

By Mekeel McBride

From the trees because they are the true intuitives.

Palm readers of sunlight and storm, calm interpreters

for any kind of wind, doing most of the detective work

on shooting stars and aurora borealis. Their easy come,

easy go romances with migrating birds scarcely bear

recording and not even the quick cinema jump cuts

from summer to snow bother them. Even if there is snow,

temperature in the minus numbers, something continues

to live, invisible, at the core. Looking at the trees, you might

see in the bare branches only the bones of Babayaga’s hand

or the possibility of kindling for your wood stove, owl haven,

or a kind of living elegy blessed on the highest branch

by one thin crow. Of course you could be wrong. What

inspiration looks like is never really what it is.

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2006 by Mekeel McBride. Reprinted from Dog Star Delicatessen, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2006, by permission of Mekeel McBride. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 207-228-8263.