Stonewood for Sale

Stonewood – Our New Hampshire Home

 

Dear family, friends and followers,

After thirteen idyllic years of retirement here in rural New Hampshire, my wife and I have now put our beloved Stonewood up for sale. Regrettably, our declining health makes it necessary to seek a more viable living arrangement.

Here is the link to our real estate broker’s listing, for anyone who might be interested:

https://verani.com/nh-real-estate/henniker/602-highland-drive-mls-4696075

– Paul
May, 2018

Dislocation

 

“The Vagaries of Luck” by Alejandro Montañez

 
old minds new things

incompatible concepts

change comes on like a train

sound and fury and speed

compose calculus of fear

the terrors of infirmity

facing new regimens

details unknown

unforeseeable therapies

incomplete panoplies

unrecognizable faces

peer out from the shadows

what spaces await

disobedient bones

to accommodate

badly turned plans

no grave will be made

in a north country forest

whose trees will have

since disappeared

like their very own

leaves of a season

the once cherished

rural aesthetic forsaken

by force of the flesh

the unkindness of time

will decide where and when

for new endings

the power to write them

transferred and invested in

vagaries given to chance

Right Place, Wrong Time

“Mountain Haze” by Bill Davidson

 

this wilderness
teaches tranquility
joy found in freedom
that comes to the lost
without compass
or maps no agenda
no time but the time
to explore to imagine
directions toward
everything possible
everything needed

this wilderness
too late discovered
impassive impatient
it should have told
eager young bones
plangent tales of antiquity
given its wisdom
to years yet unlived
not stand wasting itself
upon calcified dreams
and abandoned ambition

Ice Out

“Icy Lake” by Janet James

 

cold hard edges of winter
recede from a slow nearing sun
ice diminishes
clarity ousts opaque finishes
surfaces find their reveal
living waters
at long last exhale
lakes and millponds
released from their
three moons of torpor

no longer incumbent
on holding their seasonal breath
come again now to quicken
in rippling submission
to mountain-sent winds
casting choppy reflections
in caricature of the sentient
clouds set to oversee
osprey and heron
return to their bars

frigid shadowy shallows
emergent with coldblooded
fish coming out of
their wintery lethargy
stirred by the hooting
and hollering voices ashore
lucky folks who a year ago
chose today’s date
in the age-old tradition of
ice-out day calendar lottery

Mount Washington

“Mt Washington from Pear Mountain” by Sharon E Allen

eastern prominence
tallest of presidents
winds of liberty roar
in the sub-zero ears
of a spirited history
chilling indifference
moving even a casual
patriot into a fierce
disposition to loyalty
flinty independent
enduring as granite
whose weatherproof
rise to the sky stands
majestic with motto
iconic and palpable
live free or die

 

 

From my book Ephemera

 

Chasing History

“Playing Cards in Fryeburg Maine” by Eastman Johnson

 

Sensing mild adventure
My spring forest beckons
Boughs like green-handed arms
Overhead sweep me in
Crackling twigs underfoot
Start critters to scurrying
Darting through shimmering
Figments of latticework
Sun-woven shadows
Cast down upon air fairly
Pungent with pine-scent
And redolent bark

All the while looking
For traces of passage
Among mossy trunks
Around angular boulders
Half or more never seen
Dry icebergs that jut up
From brown-needled beds
Sprouting tussocks of turf
Alert for the odd bit
With color or form
Suggestive of artifact
Waylaid by history

Bull moose and whitetail
Track snowmelt-charged streams
Coursing rocky treed foothills
Where smugglers annulled
Prohibition by hauling
With oxen-drawn sledge
Furtive freightloads of spirits
Canadian contraband
Routes marked by ruins
Crude stopover shacks
Rotten planks overgrown
With woodland encroachment

Local lore hints one such
Way-station stood up
Right here on my land
Though no one knows where
My crown-antler Bowie
Hacks passable trails
Through vines thick as thumbs
Sturdy saplings like pickets
Slow progress until one good
Yank frees a fanned clump of
Maidenhair ferns whose roots
Tangle with rust-crusted chain

My ironwood staff
Pokes and prods fertile earth
Tracing widening arcs
That stop at a massive
Rock shelf cantilevered
Across the slope face
Sharply steepened above
A good twenty feet long
The ledge caps a space
Dense with thickets of
Buckthorn and bittersweet
Grappling to fill every inch

I poke horizontally
Jabbing lush verdure
And jump from a thrill
When I hear report back
Telltale thumps of some
Hollow-backed wood
Well concealed from the eye
Tamping down my excitement
I vow to return armed with
Counterblade loppers and
One-eighty lanterns
Once autumn drops leaves

In hobbling back down
All my pain burns more viciously
Scorching what courage
I might draw from rousing
Inspiriting echoes
An eager mind sounds
But these thought-killing fires
Make me frequently lay-by
Without peace to wonder
How many more seasons
Will give me adventure
And finish my history

 

 

A fictional reverie from my books Range of Motion, Music of Scars and Legacies (vol. 1)

Elysium

“Love Forest” by Jonas Gerard

 

campestral pockets

idyllic seclusion

small wildflower homesteads

constructed of pine-scent and space

tucked among unmarked

northern woods trails

quiet acres where creatures

commingle and contemplate

errant modernity

 

 

(originally posted October 2013)

November Morn

“Breath of Dawn” by Anna Armona

 

pieces of sky
rise up through the trees
carry light of the morning
awaken the forest
towering pines
stretch their arms
mountains yawn with
first murmurs of birdsong
brown moose and red deer
arise slowly from
soft-needled beds
already the fox and the hare
wide awake and alert
to the scent of each other
cold rivers emerge from
their hiding to take on
the clean brilliant glints
of another new sun

yes another new dawn
all the sights and the sounds
of circadium signal a
promising day in the offing
what more of a reason
could creatures like men
ever find to be thankful

 

 

(originally posted November 2015)

Sugartime

Photo by Josh Fecteau

 

the sap’s on the run

eager to meet the spring air

nectar of maple

 

 

(originally posted April 2013)

Quaint

Our Town Hall – Built 1767

 

sylvan country lanes

tuck tranquil vignettes into

yesteryear’s pockets

 

Our Town Hall – Built 1767

 

 

 

(originally posted April 2013)