 poetry and prose and the art at the Kent exhibit back story just down the road. We're Jacobson and even though she doesn't want me to say it, my co-organizer is Allison Evans, who is that lovely lady in white when he walked in with the programs. We're so grateful to be here at the Old West Church and incredibly thankful for her team of caretakers. Last week at the meeting the steeple was down on the ground, cradled in scaffolding, having spent the entire summer there, being worked on by professional expert steeple restorers and this Wednesday it was lifted up by crane and is now back home sweet home on top of the church. And how much it cost when any of you had to repair your 1823 meeting house steeple but it cost a pretty penny and so if you would like to help out in any way give a donation as you leave in a basket or if you would like to write a check later there are envelopes and an address to contribute to the ongoing repairs that we needed to keep the steeple in top shape and this building as beautiful and long lasting as it is. For close to 200 years this building has remained pretty much unchanged with no electricity so there is no microphone despite what you think. I often thank authors for coming all the way they have to share their work but really when I say that I don't just mean traveling all the way from towns like Middlesex and Bristol I mean coming all the way to poetry. First reader today is George Longenekker his book Star Root is a kind of time capsule a time capsule in which he has placed events and observations from history from family before him from moments in his own time and these stretch from early childhood to boyhood to adolescence through to maturity from a boys daydreams involving superheroes to a love of impulsive adventure a passion for nature a devotion to long and abiding love. Reading the poems in this collection we come across reflections rising from his and our collective place on earth a mere dot on the timeline. As well as among other realms space the planets stars George Longenekker's time capsule is not a skewed sampling of life his writing is sincere and he looks in every corner he touches on pain as well as pleasure the ugly as well as the beautiful sadness and humor our briefs along with our gifts. In one poem I don't know if he's going to read it today but it's a very complex favorite of mine from Diptych he writes sanity demands we forget and also but humanity demands we remember. Star root is one man's time capsule of poems addressing humanity. Please welcome George Longenekker. Thank you Mary for that introduction and thank you Allison and all of the volunteers and thank you for the steeple so honored to put it back for our reading. Mary's introductions are little poems in themselves and I'm honored also thank you Carla who will be following me in a few minutes. I was at one of these readings a couple of years ago and if you look through the windows there are the old wavy glass and I had to write this poem that reminded me of my own house house where I used to live in Marshfield. Distorted glass where we lived then some of the old window panes were rippled we looked through blue green water and lilacs and cosmos in winter we looked through ice everything white gray and frozen we had a baby then some days winter sun low in the south made rainbows on wide warm floorboards our daughter crawled to catch colors then there were dark days ice upon ice we looked at each other from either side distorted glass neither one really seeing the other it was dark by four as windows leaked cold air on windy nights thumb latches rattled answering mice in the walls some things have to be fixed if you want to survive winter not hide with your child of the quilts it took us three years but we replaced the windows clear glass with no icy grass sometimes I wish I kept one of the window panes in the morning I look at fragments of iris their purple scattered scattered here and there or an icy rain or even a view in a different light not that I really want to go back except maybe to see our child crawling after rainbows on the floor air or lake just three lights shine on the opposite shore at ten the waxing moon is only a dim sliver skies still too bright to see stars white pelicans flying low over water wings beating slowly so close I hear their feathers against air as I fall asleep they're still flying all night the milky way brightens the sky from Idaho south to Utah a plain blinks red a single satellite moves east to west all the rest is stars in desert sky shine stars light years old youngs from now somebody may be watching our star by then we'll probably be gone maybe we'll blow ourselves away it's hardly important to the milky way whether our star shines or not twilight comes by 4am across the light a porch light blinks on already the milky way is floating into dawn already one white pelican flies low or barely all the rest is stars down will come baby back when the world was half lava half ice I descended to earth already a religious boy landed in Salem but I was not a witch or a curin just a child born in a hospital I know I heard music from my black bassinet Frank Sinatra, Pimp Basie, Doris Day, the doxology, mother goose lullabies but these words I can't get out of my head when the bow breaks the cradle will fall and down will come baby cradle and all it takes a boy a long time to grow young I learned to dance before I walked waited for my fall year by year I lost the wisdom of youth I climbed a tall supermarket to escape my parents who dragged me to our fort locked me in the maxi and drove me to church where I learned my fall was coming after school I climbed that tree's topmost branches her shop was the plastic b-57 bombers and live hamsters from low words after all I was a religious boy who knew my fall was coming so what the hell I should do something religious I we sit on the stern of a sailfish on the beach one boat in a row of rentals whose mass pierced the dusk the moon has sliced the sea ships lights float on the horizon from down the beach a fisherman's headland cuts the dark as he climbs up the beach hauling a cart with his rods and catch 15 fish sorry about the light he said I'm not sorry about the light or anything tonight sitting here on a beach sailing skiff with 15 fish pulled in moonlight from the sea Florida moonlight pulls us in back to salt water from which we came but we couldn't breathe under sea any more than those fish could use gills on land there will come a night when I'll no longer breathe next to you but not tonight but sit on the sailboat stern until the moon touches her mass fragmented childhood I watched Laurel and Harvey say goodbye again and again in a perfect day waving and waving in black and white but never able to get on the road nights I couldn't sleep because I was afraid of huge black birds lurking outside my window at school we hunched under our desks for air raid drills and in a comic blast we were told our classroom windows would blow inward I couldn't finish my spelling book after the drill all I saw was fire and glass my parents my parents fed me well but I needed somebody to take me somewhere anywhere I don't know why I wanted to leave but walking away seemed safer oh I wanted to say goodbye I escaped into my stamp collection Montenegro and Gola with its elephants and girats San Marino with its castles and turrets I wondered with wolves and bears as I read Nomads of the North then I ran away in my pocket's tree books 50 cents my six favorite marbles I walked and walked until it snowed wet flakes on pines where I hid under grouping vows so cold that I finally gave up and walked home maybe I didn't want to say goodbye maybe I only wanted someone to look for me I returned to my stamps and Superman comics content to fly off to my tropos or San Marino maybe I was just looking for a little white award one day the next spring I lit a grassy field with a fire yard sale a house can be haunted by those who were never there Lewis McNeese under an awning away furnishings exposed and alone without the house which had been emptied of the maple table where the first sun shone each day on coffee cups and warm silver spoons empty a low four-posted bed where for 50 years two people loved and awoke each day imagine a bureau whose drawers held socks and underwear a house is empty of the cradle where children of first slept empty of carpets chairs knives spoons and forks mops and flocks window panes reflect bare floors signs advertise the sale furnishings sit while two curious crows swoop overhead while the empty house waits the clocks tell no time card orb slam as the yard sale begins crows call once twice circle over suing the oak bureau making table bed cradle and clocks are gone all that was there is gone inside the house is too quiet too bright next to I thought it would be history soon but unfortunately they're still in the current events category salt and sorrow a kitchen and a residence in Aleppo Syria damaged sunday and fighting narsisco contrasts photos the new york times walls are blackened there's a refrigerator with rust at its bottom stickers of yellow butterflies and black birds on its door a dish towel hand hangs on the door handle and a top sits a vase of purple paper flowers on shallow jars of spices still stand upright we can't see what's upright on the rest of the home if its power is on earth walls and windows are intact charge ceiling plaster covers the floor no mortar shells or shrapnel though a jar of beans lies unbroken and a tiny drawer maybe for salt but we don't know we know nobody can live without salt or sorrow no matter where on a lower shelf rest three small pairs of sneakers we can't see the children the parents or the photographer they must all be somewhere outside but outside is not in the picture we can't hear if there are explosions and artillery fire on the wall hanging hands a strainer and measuring spoons why do some things fall and not others all the utensils are blackened but we can't tell whether some cooking or just war in a dish strainer cut dry they'll need to be washed again if the family returns if they live their blackened kitchen sent naked around the world nest rack me in your wings hide me high in a white pine weave me a nest with your beak lying with downing feathers sew it with fine threads of nettle twine it with silk of milkweed cushion it with pussywell owls braid it with milk of moonlight let me feel warm breath from your beak let me feel your heart beat against my breast it's not sent yet he's been my my wife for over 30 years she was living down here on the bliss pond road and and at that time instead of having just road numbers for rural mail the contract routes were called star routes bus she looked on the star route bliss pond road her dented rural mailbox one of two on the corner by a sugar maple let me kiss you she said i missed my term and drove all the way to libra november stars flared between black branches somewhere between bliss pond and orion i turned and followed the right star home let me kiss you she said and i stayed longer some nights we still spread our wings and fly west past orion wings tip to tip levered pysies along the star route up over the pleiades blue stardust sparks in her eyes let me kiss you she says and we swoop so low over the pond that our feathers touch stars in the water this next one really requires three short dedications it's title rain tax it's a tribute to the journal rain tax which is a beautiful review of books out of Minnesota check them out online and and the epigraph is a line from the fuzz Ed Sanders was the lead singer of the fuzz in 50 years ago he's still around he's one of the kind of sick people my age not fuzz fans here gave him five of the line all the line and he's one of the most enduring musicians of poets half half a century as a poet historian of music and poetry and it's also dedicated to the late poet George Mayfong like dear friend and collaborator to pass on last year rain taxi soft music down a woody street worn smooth by light years of frustration and traffic the fuzz two red oak leaves stuck to the side window of an old checker cab headlights reflected in dark puddles the old Hancock towers weather like glow red for rain and from a higher building a beacon revolved in the night horns and boats in the harbor echoed through streets where waters flashed up from gutters ran down the sidewalks there on the corner I thought I saw you was your bag of poetry books pens first drafts a stoplight glowed red in a puddle and when my cab finally moved ahead you were gone of course I should have known it couldn't be you we wouldn't write any more poems together I'd seen you die on the first day of spring I forgot where I was going and all this rain I didn't know why the streets were so wet why this cab was so old I forgot what you had been raining about the last time we were together the rain taxi crossed rivers of street lights it doesn't matter much on the jupiter you wake me to see jupiter so bright aligned with four more planets Saturn Mars Venus and Mercury like the moon sets those other worlds glow all night barra now is called back and forth from palms and pines breeze off the everglades brushes our skin like moth wings carries scented mud from mangrove swamps so far to Jupiter yet the planets tonight are as close as our bodies on this blanket where we lie three feet above sea level palm fronds tick in the wind for a while owls still call this clouds turn pink it doesn't matter much on jupiter the earth's polar ice melts or flowers slips under sea plants and stars fall to the horizon a storm blows on jupiter older than all of our history love I hope we can survive for one more night thank you she has brought with her today her grand spanking new chat book that she's going to among other things read from it's called fragments from the lost book of the bird spirit and it's really fresh react harla van fleet moves between visual and literary arts in her books which I didn't bring up here but she'll show you she has paintings and poems and they're kind of in conversation with one another um which made me think about conversation and spaces between when we're in conversation with others ever notice how you say something and someone might say I hear you I hear you and what they mean is I'm connecting with their feelings and sometimes when we're leaving we say keep in touch and we mean let's stay connected even when we're apart in much of carla's work she moves between what we can touch and what we can't between the tangible and the intangible all while staying connected I was thinking of this metaphor before I found this line and the line is my cello body resonates my cello body resonates when a string player uses her bow to make moving contact with the strings on a violin or a bass or viola or a cello you've may have seen this before we hear the sounds and when the bow is not touching the strings what we hear is silence or is it sometimes the musician will finish with a pull of the bow across the strings just before lifting it carefully her bow caused in midair as her body language signals that we too are to pause it says don't clap yet the strings are still reverberating the music now living somewhere between full sound and complete quiet what sings to us then is something in between it may not be melody but it is not silence it resonates it's another energy in one of her work that I read carla van liet sounds like the careful listener who notices the spirit residing between sound and quiet please welcome carla van liet hi my name is carla van liet I really enjoyed hearing your poems George I just want to thank the Kent Museum and all of those who all put together words out loud also I want to thank all of you who support poetry in Vermont by coming to readings by sometimes buying books and also letting poetry touch your hearts I think the job of poems I'm going to read a few poems for my first two books and then showcase my new poem length chapter and then I'm going to end with a couple of new poems I just say that I don't know to give you all a map to give myself a map for this reading can you all hear me okay try to find that duper place here iris open irises open their tight blue hearts in a day this is how I remember it the dark of birth and bolts like thunder clouds or starlings breaking into air this is how the heart breaks not into pieces but into blue tongues a kind of grace in this disregarding world blue tongues and at their center a yellow star first bird I laid the moon and the darkness of my hand my body is the mystery take what you will it is an offering the waters psalm the the damp earth bored into this is the way to find me listen the first bird has called out I am here I am here there is nothing new light will soon open the east love love love there is still time in hands this is the way it goes bird rising through rain the sigh of wind-bent grass look here your touch on my reaching hand this too can be love rain falling the earth catching it like an oh this book from the book of remembrance is a collection of there's a there's a painting on one side and a poem on the other the poems are called posts post something all from maybe a post from a time space feeling something like that and I'm going to read two of these post from my kitchen it is dinner time and I am cooking in my kitchen I imagine you come up behind me I think to say the moon is but a sliver and holds the sky like your hand on my hip of course you do not hear me you at your own stove two states away I think the sand hill cranes have come back again four summers now I think of their wings held to a shape of a crescent I think if I were a crane I would leave these burgers to burn I would fly east toward your long wooden table my wings like two napkins flapping the sound they'd make like smacking lips post from the book of remembrance storms brink the trees are dusk lit and rustle and the expectant storm birds fly low across the lawn their shadows rising and falling along the grass like stitches I stand at the door watch the clouds gather over the lake roll across the valley the sutures of trepidation cinch the air at first I hear just a rumble a far off train or a truck coming down the road or fireworks out at basin harbour but then as if insisting itself the air splits ripping echoes off the mountain at my back this is how it feels to love you the sharp edge of need cutting the air a fierce slitting I have written a thousand love poems to you but never have I let you this close I'm standing in the whipping wind you may have noticed I write a lot about birds they just slide in there this is my new book length chapbook which is just out from folded word press like the first of october so pre just out it's called fragments from the lost book of the bird spirit I wrote it in the form of fragmented ancient text similar to an erasure poem and there's a play between text and silence I love what you said Mary about that that and in this in this poem in this book I play a lot with it part of that is the meaning that is created out of what's just left on the page so within the book there are eight books and I'll read the titles of the books as I go through you'll get the hang of it the book of tribulation wind swept over the waters in the body of a heron all was quiet but for the wings beat like breath each lift and cast devotion born on my tongue I was of one body the water and it was separate from yours in the space between us my first prayer my longing song how eerie the sound that rose to fill the void heartbroken amatory I only wanted who am I crying out like a mockingbird this way and that will this song bring you back this song I don't know without you I am an empty wood I do not know my own the book of bewilderment still the air what rusty trill unsettles from the tree I am listening for the direction of your next call my whole body devout the river's water a glass of sky rounding the bend I know you are the shy bird reluctant to sight I know your sounding sifts through my emptied branches furtive beating echoes the kingfisher's pitched flight the book of hazards I heard you first a risen from the far pond a low lift and drop of honking within memory asserted loss your fine goose body's long necked across the sky here I called out after you take me please and lost all sense I unburied the body of a hummingbird its iridescent form turned parado I ground the stone to dust and spread it over my tongue my words spring wings and flew away I dug another body out and this time caught my words little clamoring lungs with a butterfly net I hung a bamboo cage in my window and left those flapping urgencies to sing all night I bled a vein of cruelty the book of suffering let me die this anguish I mean it this pain that rises like a storm of black bodies crows filling the sky I am pitched toward darkness let out like a slapping flag at half mast such wind the lamenting flock having landed in the hilltop trees humbles them bends them to submission my submission to this grief this one grief lying on the edge of the cornfield above all is oblivion endless and nothing from somewhere beyond I hear the thwacking of leaf on stock time out of time five or is it six turkey buzzards glide circles in their tottering flight spelling a quietest to flesh my bones turn white under the sun raven raven your hefty darkness tethered to the pyre spirit oh spirit lift to sky deepened blue the drum sounds wing beats flame the cry of smoke carried on breath on song on ca ca ca into the night dream into the other world ablaze go up in tinder lit the body cindered coal the body ash iridescent feather tied conscripted flight pouched bones made relic bound the book of salvation I became the rain I became the rain this too is the loon song swallows all beat and lead and bank their fervent bodies spelling the air what speech what tongue grace like a knife cutting god's voice into you cutting the sky with swift shapes I stand pain and love the same cerulean blue above me I am walking the road that splits the fields sun streams through cloud struck sky in the after rain all gleams brilliant birdock in chicory cluttering the ditch an apple tree some days you have to count your blessings you have to wring out your sorrows and hang them in the gentle breeze today the air all dirt and wetness smells like hope on the wire bluebirds the book of summons russet rustling in the meadow little woodcock in the sinning grounds day is drawn to evening shade of dusky blue I stand sorrow hitched in my throat what marvel diligent foraging set aside to exalted flight sky bound flash who who sings into dawn that question we all ask in the end who who will love me oh morning dove oh soft body in the hand little beating the book of orientation in the snow I see the body's impression breast wings I kneel touch the outline the feather the feathered imprint so quiet here in this expansive field this narrow valley edged by hawkback and monkton ridge I look up to sky the blue like held breath waiting then clear the bunting song over the bray my own heartbeat meets in the cold snow falls flickering red body cardinal in the wild rose you called and called from the leafless maple yes I came out of the house my breath a cloud in the stillness and looked until I saw the red tipped branch your blood body like a prayer against all that threatens to harden tenderness faithful flame I am grateful for the reminder now beyond the window the rose hip the rustling of your mate joining you in the branches the book of restoration I heard you speak in the language of your people like water from the sky inside the apple orchard shook awake opened its branches to you bright blaze Oreo like blossoms harbinger of fruit the kindle of your song through the cedars the rattle of a sand hill crane just these rare two taking the ancient road north through the eastern mountains I know what it is to follow a visceral path worn into breath each draw each deeply rooted I tell myself it is a brave act a radical trust to heed the summons in my dream I am your body red tailed and riding the fierce air of a droning fiddle under my wings sharp eyed I seek across the land what rustles in the reeds sewn in the wind source of devotion sheer abandoned desire the unhindered is this not my delight nothing separates this body from the thermal or land or from allegiance this golden thread braided okay so I'm going to read two pretty new poems the first one is called what was needed here's another bird for you what was needed when we talk about the river we should talk about the heron whose long wings lay shadow across the sandy bank how the bird's hefty body rides air above the water how like grief wings spread what hope is it to bury bodies cradled in a swan's wing what did the bereaved imagine 6 000 years ago when they laid out the infant and mother a chariot of feathers to lift their spirits or for the wing to fold the dead ones close I came to this river like I was coming home and the river sat with me all day and night isn't it true that each of our hearts is broken in its own way my needed the water's flow the bird's fine feather and hollow bone um this last poem it's it's kind of an um an honor uh in honor to the tent museum because last year when I came to the fall show I was um I was really taken by the beauty of the art and by a particular point of painting called smoke by Stephen Lloyd and this poem is an acrostic piece a piece written out of my response to that painting it's called coveness covetous heart covetous heart the morning arose from my bed to wander through the fields tall grasses as if you were a fox flash of red fur or cardigan I watched from the window and considered how the lifting fog caressed your skin yes I stood at the curtain window and the fox of desire darted into the heavy forest of my bones I must admit my lips craved the curve of your arm your hip you rose from my bed it was early morning and I was not done with you the woods that line the meadow stitched the sky to ground your sleeves red like a blush the sun's accent when you turned to wave a gesture in dawn light you wandered out of my bed your feet bare in the dew wet grass left a trail I could see from the window like an etching of your presence the flame of your body and all around the mist rising you rose from my bed drawn by early morning's light and the mist that swirled in the breeze a gesture beckoning and you followed which of course is the flame of you I want to swallow the very part of you that rises to the beckoning the fox of you stepping into what is just awakening your turn to see me watching and your gesture for me to follow thank you very much and thank you Karla for coming all the way to poetry I hope some of you or all of you can join us down at the Kent for some refreshments and take in the backstory exhibit which is running through October 7th and also check out the website for Art at the Kent there's lots of wonderful events coming up and next week if you can come back for two really great personalities we'd love to have you again thank you and have a great afternoon