Somerville poet Richard Wilhelm sent us an excerpt from his lyrical memoir about his childhood in rural New Jersey.

Hummer’s Beach

Poet Richard Wilhelm

XIV

“I think it an invaluable advantage to be born and brought up in the neighborhood of some grand and noble object in nature: a river, a lake, or a mountain.  We make a friendship with it; we in a manner ally ourselves with it for life.”
— Washington Irving
 
Now we’re running Weygadt—
Hog Rift—dig in, turn, through the chute—
wave lifts the canoe, slams it down—
water splashes over the gunwales—
we speed down the channel
into open water—

The mountains hold us in cupped hands—

Brother Squirrel says if we do not return the love
the world will go away.

After eons of scanning the sky
the eyes turn slowly to earth
observe the fluidity of forms
of cycles and paradox,
the flow of waters.

Where the mountains and river meet
among the silver maples and sycamores,
I am rooted in the sandy earth that recalls
the hidden footprints of my forebears.

I crossed the river, swam
against the current, honored
the serpent as well as the fish, danced
around and controlled the fire, hoping
it would all lead me back to some beginning,
to a unus mundus, before we constructed
our hoped-for heavens and demeaned
the very grace in which we take our air.

— Richard Wilhelm

______________________________
To have your work considered for the LYRICAL send it to:
dougholder@post.harvard.edu