New residents on a new street
Of patio homes at Golden Pines.
We gather around the spinach dip,
Bright, eager exchanges
Like the first social in the freshman dorm:
Threads of things held in common,
Coincidence of childhood streets,
Sons and daughters, stepchildren, grandchildren,
Their schools and games,
Career paths crisscrossing the continent
Over fifty years.
We lived in Boston once, our first child was born there.
We may have left behind along the way
Some furniture, or faith or energy,
Or the spouses we started out with.
What we have in common mostly, though,
Unspoken,
Is that these paths have all led here,
This acknowledgement, this choice and throwing-in together
We all have made.
I walk along the pond at dusk;
Low vapor lamps cast a friendly orange glow.
I exchange greetings with the Canada geese.
A cottage we pass by each day
I see is suddenly empty:
Someone else will be there soon.
So here we all are:
It is only a matter of time.
2. To reach our house at Golden Pines
You go across a bridge,
The last bridge, my friend, age 80, calls it.
Don’t say that, I tell him,
Blood pumping, pulsing
Against skin turned to paper by the years.
For it had seemed to me,
Until not long ago, that
We might be exempt
From certain statistical probabilities
And live forever.
You go across a bridge,
The last bridge, my friend, age 80, calls it.
Don’t say that, I tell him,
Blood pumping, pulsing
Against skin turned to paper by the years.
For it had seemed to me,
Until not long ago, that
We might be exempt
From certain statistical probabilities
And live forever.
3. On the eve of his seventh birthday
Philip and I play bocce at Golden Pines.
I roll the red ball hard, to give him a chance.
A silly game, he thinks he knows who is meant to play.
He considers evidence:
The ramp descending gently into the pool,
That only grandparents seem to live at Golden Pines,
And what might happen next.
We watch the swans nesting by the pond.
Philip’s ball, heavy, deep granite green,
Eases toward the pallino:
This day, I think, will not come again.
Philip and I play bocce at Golden Pines.
I roll the red ball hard, to give him a chance.
A silly game, he thinks he knows who is meant to play.
He considers evidence:
The ramp descending gently into the pool,
That only grandparents seem to live at Golden Pines,
And what might happen next.
We watch the swans nesting by the pond.
Philip’s ball, heavy, deep granite green,
Eases toward the pallino:
This day, I think, will not come again.
4. Morning walk at Golden Pines:
Late February sky deep blue
Through trees for now still leafless
But about to change their minds.
A moving van packs up the contents of a cottage,
Fewer since her husband died,
And takes them to Assisted Living,
As if there were some other kind.
Across the pond, the hink and honk of geese,
Heading north, programmed to care for their own.
An ambulance pulls slowly away
From the Health Care Building,
Siren, blue lights turned off.
Late February sky deep blue
Through trees for now still leafless
But about to change their minds.
A moving van packs up the contents of a cottage,
Fewer since her husband died,
And takes them to Assisted Living,
As if there were some other kind.
Across the pond, the hink and honk of geese,
Heading north, programmed to care for their own.
An ambulance pulls slowly away
From the Health Care Building,
Siren, blue lights turned off.
5. We’ve brought some wooden chairs,
In pieces, glue dried out,
To the storage shed at Golden Pines,
Metal repository for life’s archives,
A kind of purgatory of possessions.
Their time will come around again:
My mother’s walker, her wheelchair;
The board games our girls once loved—
Philip will be able to enjoy them soon.
The chairs, which could be fixed, I guess,
Join a roomful, floor to ceiling, of
Things one doesn’t feel quite up to
Dealing with just now:
At length, of course, someone will.
Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders, published in 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems have received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club. He is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Bob’s poems have appeared in over 150 periodicals, including Cold Mountain Review and Louisville Review.
In pieces, glue dried out,
To the storage shed at Golden Pines,
Metal repository for life’s archives,
A kind of purgatory of possessions.
Their time will come around again:
My mother’s walker, her wheelchair;
The board games our girls once loved—
Philip will be able to enjoy them soon.
The chairs, which could be fixed, I guess,
Join a roomful, floor to ceiling, of
Things one doesn’t feel quite up to
Dealing with just now:
At length, of course, someone will.
Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders, published in 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems have received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club. He is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Bob’s poems have appeared in over 150 periodicals, including Cold Mountain Review and Louisville Review.
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