Kayaking by Robert Demaree

1. August 2012

I call the cottages
By the names of owners past,
My parents’ friends.
There are plastic swans
At Don Queen’s place,
Set out to ward off Canada geese
New to our New Hampshire pond.
I paddle close to shore,
Compiling in my mind
An invasive watercraft index,
Awarding points for those
Powered by hand or wind,
Deductions for inboards,
Jet skis and the like.
I have misjudged the people
In the Campbell house:
They have a kayak after all.

Against the rumble
Of an occasional truck
On the state road
One cannot hear
The fishermen’s trolling motor,
A neutral value on my scale,
As two guys,
Probably from another pond,
Head, as fishermen will,
For the spot,
A gathering place for bass,
That my father loved.

2. September 2014

Cerulean September postcard day,
Breeze six knots or so out of the Northwest:
Two small kayaks put in at the public launch,
A young couple from somewhere else
Setting out to see new vistas on our pond.
I would like to point things out to them:
The tutoring camp where my father taught,
The dam, the inlet where Perry Brook
Ends its narrow run down Copple Crown,
The cottage where we lived
When we first came here—what?—
Nearly seventy summers ago.
I might also ask them if they checked for milfoil.
But they are headed the other way.
I paddle along the west shore,
Past the family of mergansers I saw last week,
Their young still not ready
To set out on their own.
My friend Herb, widowed some years back,
Often sits on his dock alone,
Drinking coffee, reading the paper.
Today, though, he has someone with him,
A woman, I think.

3. Around the Pond

Quiet pond morning in July,
Kayak gliding alongside the past:
A pine tree, now bare, reaches out
Over the shallow bay;
Julys ago our girls
Stood here to pose, then bravely splash
Into the warm, yellow-sand lake, ankle deep.
On the hill we used to climb
The craggy overlook socked in,
Growth of dense green years.
Just as well:
The view we loved now shows
Other hills laid bare for condos.
I paddle home
Against a fresh breeze;
Shoulders that have seen seventy summers
Pull against water heavy with time,
Past the cottages of my father’s friends.



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 numerous periodicals, including Cold Mountain Review and Louisville Review.