Third Connecticut Lake by Robert Demaree

He got the idea from John Irving
In A Prayer for Owen Meany:
Driving the length of New Hampshire,
To the end of U.S. 3,
At the border with Québec,
North of the notches,
Past the sites of grand hotels,
River towns, the paper mill,
The faded-paint dignity of
Hard-scrabble farms,
Into the remote woods,
Fishing camps, logging trails,
To a destination,
The Third Connecticut Lake,
Mist, forty-degree September morning,
Sometimes a fisherman or two,
Always a penetrating calmness
Announcing the difference
Between solitude and loneliness,
Why he does not go to Mexican restaurants
On mariachi night.



Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders, published in June 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club, and have appeared in over 150 periodicals. A retired educator, he resides in Wolfeboro, N.H. and Burlington, N.C.