 Well, good evening. Welcome to the Unitarian Church of Montpeyre, not far from 900. My name is Peter Thomas. We acknowledge the creative endeavor, which is poem city 2023, sponsored by Kellogg-Hebert Leimer and Sheppard so well by Michelle Singer. So brief housekeeping. We have three bathrooms, down on the next floor, down below, two are on the side, and one is in the corner of the room. We have an elevator in the back, which anyone is welcome to use. And Bear Pond Books is also here in the far corner with Jess, who has copies of Audrey's book. Given Montpeyre's vital and fruitful presence in Vermont for decades, it's tempting to say that she needs no introduction and to sit down. Resisting that prospect, a few things come to mind. Marjorie's path has been marked by clarity, commitment, candor, vision, hope, and engagement. All have informed her endeavors in journalism, photography, writing, teaching, and public service. And in all, she has a striking ability to recruit other people. Marjorie has been a regular poet all of her life, has taught poetry for the Middlebury College at the Newman Young Writers Conference for 20 years, and has taught poetry for Johnson State College and Dartmouth College. She has served as an award-winning journalist, the editorial director of two publishing companies of Vermont State Legislature, and an award-winning writing professor for Cassiton State College. Originally from Philadelphia, I graduated below college. Marjorie holds a graduate degree in poetry from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. Speaking of Marjorie's talent to recruit, which in essence is leadership, two projects come to mind. First is the extraordinary 2003 book and project, Water Music, the proceeds of which benefited the UN Foundation to support water as a resource for the earth and its inhabitants. And if you don't know the book, that's what it is. And I would like to take the liberty of reading from one page of this book early on. And it's probably worth showing to you if I can manage the physical talent. It's really the title page, and here's what the words say, Water Music, Photographed and Orchestrated by Marjorie Ryerson. 66 renowned musicians from around the world celebrate water in words and music. Introduction by Paul Winter. And this is from the University of Michigan. One that was taking part in that project, for example, are Sharon Robinson and Jamie Laredo, Bobby McFerrin, Gordon Bach, Midori, Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, and Renee Fleming. Imagine. Second, you may know that Marjorie is president of the board of directors of the nonprofit for the land publishing, which has put out three volumes of the Vermont Almanac. This one from last fall pulls together 72 writers. Surely evidence of high recruitment scales. Again, speaking to her capacity to recruit others, it's of deep value for the writers, for the views from Mount Langer. Marjorie has enlisted Green Writers' Crest Brownoverl, Mary Azarian, Mason Singer, a Laugh-and-Mare Associates, Melanie Kuhn, Scarlett Parker, Archimere, Reeve Lindbergh, Charlotte D. Njord, Robert Ray, and Sydney Lee. To conclude from E.B. White and Charlotte's Web, 1952, it's not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Please welcome Marjorie and Carl. Hi, everybody. Thank you for coming. This is just marvelous. Many of you I know, and those of you I don't know who are just fans of poetry. Welcome to all of you. I am very much looking forward to sharing a few of my poems from this newly released book that came out on Valentine's Day this year. And joining me on stage, I am so honored, is the remarkable pianist Carl Ricchia. He is gifted and sensitive and humorous and wonderful to work with. It's been a great gift to have him on the keys. He's a recently retired music professor, a music teacher of 42 years, the last 32 of which he spent at Champlain Valley Union High School. I am hugely honored to share this presentation with Carl. After many decades of teaching poetry, it took the pandemic to get me to sit down and actually count the number of my own poems on my computer. And to my shock, I had 3,500 poems on my computer. And I went, it's about time I did something. So I started trying to figure out how to publish other books as you know. But this is a thank you, Peter, for the introduction. It just had never occurred to me to try to get some of my own poems in a book. And I am deeply grateful to Mason Singer, the designer who did a flawless job on this book. And we've been friends for many, many decades. We've done other projects before. But as I told him when we started, it was a lifelong dream of mine to have Mason design a book of my poems. And here we did it. And Mary Azarian, who sings in the chorus with me. And I'm very proud to have her woodblock print on the cover. It's called November Ravens. And I put a poem about November Inn because of Mary's art. I would like to keep this evening within our time limit. So I want to ask you, if you're inclined to applaud, to hold it until the end, because that will make it go more smoothly. For my opening poem, I would like to read a poem I wrote for my son and his wife Liz. They have just come up this afternoon from Concord, Massachusetts with my grandchildren Sabine and Kai. This is a poem called Libretto. In the month they first opened hearts to one another, they learned that love comes in layers. The top layer is the music. The top layer is the hydrogen melding with transparent oxygen pouring palpably through thirsty fingers. The top layer is the anticipation spreading willingly like tide over rocks. It is hands culling Chopin and the keys. It is touch, eyes. It is sleepless peace. In the weeks in which they each talked alone in the darkness, they learned that the second layer of love is want. It is the precipice of the unknown. It is the search for the familiar in the desert of change. It is the street without houses, a mountain without true north. It is trust. In the days in which they shed expectations, in which they let go both of asking and needing, they learned that love's third layer is the in-breath. It is the meadowgrass before the animal's graze. It is the pond without wind. It is the skeletal self made flesh. The ideal lover lives beside me day and night. Multiple times a day, he gazes at me with deep love, then gently places his forehead against my mouth for a kiss. In the mornings, he moans with longing, gently pressing against me as I awaken. He loves to eat and is consistently grateful for food I place before him. He readily communicates how much he missed me when I come home from a few hours away. He consistently rewards me with gentle affectionate love. He quietly talks to me throughout each day, his eyes squinting with smiles. His native language is not mine, but I understand everything he says. He has four legs and a long furry tail, my ideal lover, River's Wisdom. This poem came from a trip I made down the Mississippi River to photograph the River for the water music book. The River's Wisdom. The water twists, torals howling forward. This river sucks enough water from springs and storms to keep plummeting its level power beyond every next curve. Coral pools and eddies, random but constant, shiver the surfaces that spin gold at dawn, that shimmer blue at high noon, that dress entangled black silk as the new moon ascends the ridge. This river's wisdom is in charge, even during the crest of April as snow melt fattens its blustering core, even in late January when geometric sport ice seals in the current with winter lace. This river knows what all rivers know. Its language is constant music as it breaks its glass against rocks, thuds its drums against fallen trees, shimmies its slick body under dripping bridges. This river doesn't sing for humans who grow forward, stopping and starting, relying on emails, paychecks, reality TV. This river's wisdom is in its lack of need. This river's wisdom is in attaining harmony, even while thundering. This river's wisdom is in simply being in a place without time. This river's wisdom is in welcoming roots, light, eternity. No questions asked. This river's wisdom is in valuing the life within. Is this Mike okay? Can you hear me? Okay. Hidden treasures. Why has kindness disappeared over the mountain ridge? Will he ever run back here and come to visit us again before the sun, as is her habit, slips silently behind the barn? And whatever happened to honesty who used to bring her friend integrity to dinner each day, honesty used to beg us to shed all the dirty laundry from the chairs so that they could have a seat at the table. Did caring stop in the meadow to collect wild apples? Surely she will bring some of those fruits back home to share with those of us who are unable to reach into thorns for sweetness. We gave respect the right to open our mail to hug all our friends, but somehow humans told him that he had to earn his presence by doing chores and good deeds for them every day. He finally shrugged and moved to the moon. The elderly Miss Faith was kidnapped centuries ago by religion. She had kept asking humans to trust the gray areas even if they couldn't see or understand them. When those humans didn't believe that oceans lay at the end of rivers, Miss Faith lay down and died. Trust sat by his ex-wife Hope's bedside and shook as she departed the world. He hadn't once written her memoir, but had never found a publisher to carry the book. Right before her death, Trust hired a lawyer and hijacked Hope's estate. Beauty kept writing editorials for the weeklies insisting that she wasn't merely a physical presence, but was actually inside people's hearts reflecting who and what they cared about most. She swore her value was in meaning, not in bathing suit contests. The twins' cooperation and community were each individual hands that composed classical music. The left hand was gifted. She mastered all the keyboard notes. The right hand only wanted to shake other hands and wave at all the cameras. Love, he, she, and they love felt overused and undervalued. Love, the fabric of all living things kept begging for understanding. Love wanted to be the only language spoken in the world, the one and only doctor who could keep us all healthy in with light. It doesn't matter the words we use, each poem narrates the same story. Each poem attempts to make sense of the jagged past, tries to walk the thin ice of the present. Each poem slips moist fingers into the future, slips into rooms whose doors are locked. Elsewhere, biologists in antiseptic labs bend over microscopes hoping to discover why words cannot move us closer to our own parched cores. Does it matter that scientists have discovered the genes for risk and uncertainty? Does it change anything if the Big Bang never happened? All we need to know is that when our eyes meet those of the sun and don't shrink away, refuse with the spirit of a poem. When what we see coalesces with light, we know ourselves at last. The verbs of love, see, recognize, linger, stare, listen, inquire, explore, wonder, ache, fantasize, shiver, tingle, tremble, touch, plunge, submit, surrender, shimmer, radiate, burn, burst, melt, melt, treasure, become, breathe, stumble, struggle, cleave, weep, shut down, comprehend, compromise, reach out, surrender, laugh, heal, the solitude of November. In the meditation known as November, branches shove thin fingers into ash and air. The first snowflakes drift dizzily down in slow motion as if the clouds are just running their numbers, counting out one plus one makes five. Naked November holds out from bare palms, welcoming the imminent darkness to come. In this month, lanky rivers settle heavily into their beds, unobserved, undisturbed, relieved to hibernate under ice until spring. Humans are hesitant visitors to this ancient month, a time in which candidate geese no longer fly, and trees last starved leaves abandon hope. Everywhere, once vibrant plants have folded at their waists like tired old ladies tying their shoes. It is best to be alone with November, a month whose reward is ample space for breathing, a month that follows toxic heat, brash colors, reckless harvests, and humans struggling to complete their summer chores, racing against clocks that tick too quickly. November spreads for gray silk across damped ground, a carpet for drowsy meadows, for the few who choose to see. The next poem is called Instructions for the Eight Billion, and it is a participatory poem if you want, if you choose. Be still and breathe in. Pull the silky air into your abdomen. Feel yourself fill from your knees to your shoulders. Shut your eyes or allow them to stay halfway open. Allow your mind to empty. Allow your mind to still. Be no more than the air you breathe. Acknowledge your thoughts as though they are strangers passing by on the street. On each in-breath, feel the last century pour into you. It is your inheritance from flapper girls to the Korean War, from the Model T to Moon landings, from the parched cornfields of the 30s to AA meetings, from New Orleans jazz to Mr. Rogers to AIDS, all its moments, all its inhabitants are alive in you. They reside in your lungs, each restless commuter, each stalled snowplow driver, each tired biology professor in her lab seeking a new cure, each elementary school nurse doing throat cultures, watching the clock, let them all float away, cradle your left hand in your right, touching your index fingers at the middle knuckle, touch the tips of your thumbs together and hold them still. Continue to breathe deeply, slowly, silently count one as you breathe in, one, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, three, three, four. Breath is your legacy for this country, this century, excuse me. Your hope for rainforests, your gift of lessons learned about wars, your anguish for the warming planet, this present moment is all that we have. Breathe it in, fill your abdomen, your ribs with the roundness of the blue shrouded globe with 14 billion year old stars still traveling away from the Big Bang, still a long way from wherever they are going, stars still searching for meaning and finding it only in the journey. Now concentrate on your left hand. Let the center of your being be in your left hand. All your power, all your compassion, all your energy is in your left hand. Let that energy radiate to the ends of your toes and to each follicle where 100,000 hairs grow from your scalp. These breaths belong to you alone, powerful and whole without compromise. This legacy is yours alone in the package of your genes, in the wholeness of this moment, in your breath, in your abdomen, in your light. I didn't Randolph as most of you know and I walk a lot around the town and there was one street in Randolph called School Street and this poem came from walking up and down School Street many times and looking at what was there. The man who lit her School Street. I've named him Ralph, the man who lit her School Street. I know him from the inside out. He smokes parliaments one after the other after the other. He sips vodka in small airline bottles, two bottles per block. He crumples McDonald's wrappers into wads the size of a cat's head because they fly farther across the green lawns. He pitches his Coke cans above driveways with an inch of soda left in them because then the brown foam sprays in the sunlight from the mouth hole as the sparkly cans gyrate in the air. Ralph cruises School Street heaving his prize rubbish across waving lawns like Nuria doing cartwheels above an open stage. The items spin from his barely open to pick up window in a perfected arch. At home, she nags and winds the whole floors are crunchy with last glitchers mud. The unwashed dog barks constantly but out here on School Street Ralph's the boss. His paper plates spin at the truck windows flip-flopping freely in the stiff wind announcing freedom. Ralph swerves his truck onto the shoulder each time he heaves his empty bud lights. His truck slowly leaves oil like a dream's afterthought disturbs the waking hours. The hue of Ralph's skin is orange due to all the free-toes. The truck's exterior is rust and indigo. It's a 94 Chevy that Ralph dragged from a dead farmer's field. The tires still slosh with water but the goddamn thing drives right. You hear it coming while turkeys take flight from the growl of the lost muffler. There is nothing shy about things not to lose. Car key, cell phone, court case, door key, dog, dinner, charge card, checkbook, curiosity, birth certificate, breath, balance, instruction manual, individualism, relevance, job, drinking water, glove, youth, music, laughter, luggage, hair, underwear, hearing, happiness, humor, humility, honesty, electricity, ethics, vacation, voice, gratitude, a healthy planet, sensation in hands or feet, diction, predilection, friends, forests, tennis game, optimism, intuition, house, parking space, exercise, knack, nerve, hand, the chance to explore peace, questions, way, innocence, how to write a poem that is brief. Pick a topic like describing a leaf. Don't attempt to write a poem with that grief. Avoid any poems describing a thief. While you're at it, skip having a motif and be sure to stay away from comic relief or poems about the Great Barrier Reef. Instead, write a poem about corned beef or else craft a poem about a handkerchief. And don't dare show your finished piece to your favorite editor-in-chief. A few years ago, I went to the Boston Symphony to hear that amazing symphony perform the last complete symphony that Gustav Mahler composed, his ninth symphony. He was 49 when he started writing it and he was 50 when he completed the piece. And in the first movement of that symphony, his five-year-old daughter died and you hear that grief in the music as he was writing it. And by the fourth movement, Mahler himself was dying. As a result, that symphony is a very emotional piece of music. As I sat in the Boston Symphony hall, my eyes filled with tears while listening to the performance as did those of most of the rest of the audience and even the conductor. I felt as if Mahler was standing on the stage and through sound was telling me his stories. So I listened over and over to recordings of the symphony when I returned home to Vermont. And then I wrote four poems, one for each movement. And today I'm going to read you the first and the fourth. And it's, as you can imagine, a fairly abstract project to do, to buy on the floor and listen as I did repeatedly to listen to music and think what is the story that the music is telling me? Andante Comedot from Mahler's main symphony first movement. Inside Mahler's folded chest is a spruce branch heavy with snow, bowed and still, pinned against the hard ground by its own weight. Even now Mahler's battered heart longs to shed its needle burdens, longs to empty blood from veins to dance unencumbered by clothes or bones. To transform branches into barn swallows ascending into the sky. Mahler bends to weave his layers of history together into lace hoping to give the stories a purpose at last. He throws his ruddy fingers across absent decades but his heart has lost its voice. Silenced by the death of his small child by glimmers of his own twilight in the dense unknown. Mahler opens the doors toward empty stage dragging branches behind him. Empty chairs blind the room and tables are folded against the wall. The wood floors shine. The windows blisten with rain. Suddenly the room is of lover with bright blue that lifts effortlessly as the anthem and the anthem of Vittsussir Vittsussir is heard behind the rain. And as most of you know I'm sure Mahler was Austrian and the national bird of Austria is a barn swallow and its cry is Vittsussir. Molto Adagio symphony fourth movement. Across the hushed crust of snow feeble light sketches pencil shadows that shutter when the wind fragments the landscape with its mean breaths. The hours are like the shadows like the wind irretrievable. We try but cannot clutch them to our chests. The darkness from which we flee is distinguishable from us. The darkness does not ask for meaning. It seeks nothing. Just as grief does not judge does not negotiate does not know its own name. And when death puts out its furry palms and devours all in its path our final whispers come from high in the throat. We are no longer one. We are verb flailing fading metamorphosing into timorous laments into transparent memory into unsuspecting geese flying north. We are echos of moonlight vibrating in the wind just beneath the horizon beyond sight beyond sound. Every day body the obedient sixth grader does exactly what she is told. She sits up straight follows old directions she stays quiet while teacher talks always keeps her iPad near she gets her homework done on time her science essays polished her fractions correct her skill builder words memorized her chocolate desserts shared mind is the benevolent dictator in body's life he oversees her from his throne raises his voice sternly if he is displeased keeps support staff on alert orders the $200 Malo mind knows how to dip gray neurons into the waters of curiosity and how to flip quickly through the morning news if mind wants to be entertained he orders a rocket to the moon he flies first class he insists on the detour to Mars meanwhile body keeps her sugar intake low she gets A's in French class she gets 8 hours of sleep each night and wears clean undies she never forgets her veggies teacher insist that body obey minds commands but today body's front row seat is empty is she ill? body wouldn't play hooky but neighbors saw body flee the back door and ascend the mountain behind the school she was wearing pink orderoys and no shirt her legs and torso dancing mind is called on the hotline he calls in the law law orders body back to the school insisting she obey her peas and queues that she salute the flag but body only dashes farther up the mountain she sings with the birds her grin melts nearby snow fields and shines light into valleys it looks like body is growing wings how can this be? is that body who now hollers through a bullhorn announcing to the world that she is in love that she alone rules could it be body is now shredding her lifetime contract with mind letting the paper contract float away carried by the soft wind that reliably wipes the mountains clean the W's of 2020 and yes I wrote this in 2020 in isolation we use fewer words we watch winter and wine we wash down more whiskey more wine we wear winter PJ's weeks at a time we watch the weather while we whisper at walls instead of wasting our time on wacky websites we wonder what makes weekends different from weekdays we wistfully recall work we wave at friends across the way and wish we were walking with them we jam wet wood into stoves hoping to warm ourselves we wear out our water pipes while washing our hands we wander, wrecked through wasted days we wilt over worsening mornings we whimper we watch we wait we ask when we wait longer we worry we grow weary we withdraw we take walks we weep harvest at last I am shaking my own hands opening them to a brightly lit silence that is nothing more nothing less than sacred music I am finally hearing the chords playing for me louder than all the shoes hurrying across China louder than all the BMWs in East Hampton I am sifting this harvest through my fingers it will fill me for years with wheat and fruits with clear, clean waters my arms gather the harvest of fears fears of stepping off the edges of mountains fears of failed dreams of restless lonely nights besides troubled highways fears of dying fears of being alive my hands assemble the harvest of loss loss of parents loss of children loss of hope I am culling the nutrients of my decades rubbing them into my skin holding them under my tongue I wait to this music and know that intimacy means touching fingers with those who have shared a single measure an entire symphony whether if night's breath plays its flute to the stream inspiring dreams in sleeping fish or if the stream stretches its sparkling fingers around miles of its own violin while night above leans heavily down pulling the bed covers over its head I wonder if the dying cedars lining the street banks bend toward their gyrating reflected images or if instead the water dances upward toward star tree roots offering its song as nourishment as well as hope I wonder if the percussions of time ask the vibrations of instant gratification to dance while the screen plays its piano and sheds tears or if the vibrations challenge the percussions to determine who is stronger wiser kinder more enduring I wonder if the fireflies see anything but themselves conquering the dark and if they assume the stars is merely their own reflection illuminating another night as it seeps in above distant mountain reaches as Peter said in my introduction I have taught for 20 years of the New England on Writers Conference and it's all 17 year olds studying all kinds of writing I was teaching poetry and I worked on my students to use all their sensory perceptions first what they saw and also to use metaphor and the students would say why wouldn't I just say my mother's fat you know why would I say she was like an overstuffed suitcase so I wrote this poem and read it to 150 17 year olds it's called some men kiss some men kiss like backhoes preparing the backyard for a swimming pool some men kiss like sparrows clinging to the telephone lines their claws ripping the wire hanging on for dear dear life some kiss like harleys blasting over the terrain spraying dust that obliterates the sun and burns the eyes some kiss like children nearly beside their beds thanking God for mommy and daddy some kiss like math the chapter on equations followed by the chapter on integral equations expecting all formulas to balance in the end and the answers to be either right or wrong expecting to earn straight A's some kiss like moths on a screen door their dusty wings pinging the rusty metal in an involuntary dance with death some kiss like toothbrushes inspired to clean every crack massage every gum some kiss like vultures working the carcass of the deer with sharp nibbles at soft available flesh some kiss like a long night sleep after a drunken night out with the boys settling their bodies down heavily losing consciousness their lips bench pressing 500 pounds some kiss like super glue mending shards of a broken vase the glue stronger than the vase a glue to last 10,000 years some kiss with tongues of river bottoms some kiss with tongues hardest studded tires in January some with jackhammer tongues urgently broadcasting morse code as you can imagine I became mother famous that year when I read that like wow you kissed a lot of men the first student that said that to me I said no I wrote as a study of metaphors and similes and then after that I went yeah what do you think house windows the house windows have been clothed in mourners black for more than five hours while my four poster bed has been singing a love song to me telling me how lonely it is for the weight of my war body pressed against its mattress my bed has been crooning to me don't turn on the lights don't check the time don't think about the return email you did not write to that long ago friend don't consider going back downstairs to shove yet one more log into the wood stove don't worry that you never got all the dishes in the sink washed come come slide your soft body horizontally into my arms let me hold you and love you shut your eyes and trust that while I hold you you will forever know peace the bed then gets down on its knees and proposes marriage it whispers my name with a familiar timbre then spreads itself gently beneath me love is love is ice cream the ad needs but no love is watching Tyrone Brown dance with his bass on the stage while beside him Max Roach smiles like a new father love is Bach's relentless passion pumping across Vermont the radio's tiny red on like the only color in the darkness as a pitch sky cups the frozen landscape love is the details the story of John cradling his injured son the story of Bill and Beth and Whitney in separate exotic countries for one long afternoon wanting above all else each other love can get sticky when its prisms send rainbows down the ancient paths and its promises fail to materialize love doesn't amount to much when it comes to tailor made ordered from the love catalog or if it gets cut as a deal a this for a that love isn't love if it emanates outward without a core sometimes power or money are mistaken as love is merely a safety net but this morning love is belonging love is the blue papered living room with its decades of memories love is a safe place for the doctor run bedrooms where all our lives have slept a wood stove that holds its coals overnight bookshelves where the opera summaries are still top right and the atlases still sit beside the poetry books love is the honor we extend to the rooms that hold us love is the embracing of the fabrics colors people and memories of our choosing love is a letter from Elmore a phone call from Wolker love is a day of warm sunlight in winter when we realize we finally turned the corner toward spring surviving the last sub-zero morning for another season the highest wall the highest wall ever built across our path is made from the rugged material called grief when you get there reach out touch it gently explore its barbed surface with your tender fingers accept its imprint on your body acknowledge that this wall will forever alter your path forward know that this wall will shape new directions for your life but also know that when you arrive at the wall you will find community there you will never get alone at the wall we are all there with you and from my last poem this is my final poem of the reading I'm going to read a poem called Music Doctors the world unravels burns and shreds in ways none of us had imagined and in ways none of us knows how to repair yet healing tears flood our cheeks as Vox BWV 974 Adagio saturates the world Massonet's meditation Adagio also raises the rivers of our souls' gardens as does Auropart's spiegel in spiegel Music doctors are as old as the human race these healers drenches with the only medicine that truly cures medicine that numbs our agony so that we can go on making my favorite music doctor thank you everybody