‘Queen Anne’s Lace’ ~ Mary Maletskos ~ Folly Cove Designers

STILL AND BROWN

Stock still and brown

Melissa de Haan Cummings majored in French and English Literature at 
Bryn Mawr. She has published poetry in a number of journals. 
 She describes her interests as including, “much small boating around Cape
 Ann, love of Charles Olson, Hatha yoga practice since 1969."

Boats Docked in Fog (Copper Paint Factory as seen from East Gloucester) Joseph Margulies (1896-1984)

The Wind Turbines


The wind turbines
are still
Fog in East Gloucester
may be down town
Lanesville free of it
in a barefoot sun
pitching tennis balls 
to young hitters
who want to be
inside may be 
tired
then leave all that
for the increased 
warmth of Beverly
Feel a fog
half way there
coming across
Pride's Crossing
And on the return
see the white stuff
and how it blankets
half the turbines
Find home 
still free of it



Melissa de Haan Cummings
29 May 2015


WILLI WAW


Two streaks on the water 
rush toward the river
like giant fish
waiting for the suck
back of ocean
preceding tsunami
in a wash of potential fog
which fails to arrive
with a brisk northwesterly 
followed by no storm
a miniature willi waw
soon returned to calm
bringing out a sweatshirt
and a sweater
bringing Marge 
off the porch
with its temperature drop



Melissa de Haan Cummings
13 May 2015

Melissa de Haan Cummings majored in French and English Literature at 
Bryn Mawr. She has published poetry in a number of journals. 
 She describes her interests as including, “much small boating around Cape
 Ann, love of Charles Olson, Hatha yoga practice since 1969."

Essex Boatyard by Brent Jensen

REVELATIONS

A bicycle seat
by the middle 
granite step
to the back stoop
a bit of driveway
in front of the Neon
the top of an orange
and blue motorcycle 
lobster pot buoys
along the fence

What happens
if you hit this?
I don't know 
but don't play 
with buttons
on my machines!

Nice to contemplate mist
leaf free branches
and evergreens

Ice cakes return
to the Mill River

Butler is a white
Basset type 
with short brown ears 
He climbs snow drifts
and trots along up there
wondering why people
fail to join him
He also likes to stop
for bird song
and water sound

Forty knot spray 
whipping through the gap
horizontal 
turquoise kayak
on the mud
up right again
this penultimate day 
before Equinox

Well I went over to Essex
and I bought horse feed
because we have six 
or eight deer 
in our back yard
They are so thin!
One's a fawn!
A doe came onto the patio
to eat leftover bird seed
They are so hungry!
I know you aren't 
supposed to feed them
They are vegetarians 
but they eat horse feed
Ninety bucks!
I had to!
You had to!
             --Adelia



Melissa de Haan Cummings
17-19 March 2015

Melissa de Haan Cummings majored in French and English Literature at 
Bryn Mawr. She has published poetry in a number of journals. 
 She describes her interests as including, “much small boating around Cape
 Ann, love of Charles Olson, Hatha yoga practice since 1969.”

The Wonson Twins. c.1846. ~ Moses B. Russell

FOUR HOURS

What to do with four hours
in chilly weather 
Follow Chuang Tzu
read the night before
"Let your mind wander
in simplicity..."*

First Dylan wants 
shootouts names himself
several players from
various teams
achieves tremendous
excitement with his scores
Did you see that?
Did you see that move?
Yar it was me you scored on

Dylan's turn with the iPad
games finds Riley restless
Want to wash the kitchen floor?
You who love pushing 
the Wet Jet button  Yah!
Riley sprays half a dozen spots
says he will scrub later
Yah!  Out of liquid 
Fetch another jet  from upstairs 
Out of energy
Leave them in Damon's
Computer Room

Riley asks for eggs wants more
eats less has an urge
for Butterfinger
so the boys race next door
with an unneeded key
limited to one dollar each
which Dylan gives Riley
who claims Eli stole
forty dollars from his bank

O K take dogs along
insist on walking the whole
block up Tucker
O you eat the chocolate first?
Yah   It's really good this way
I got a Kit Kat Bar!
Guess what my favorite
candy is!  Kit Kat   Yah
Riley asks for batting practice
O K thinking it will be short
lasted two hours in yesterday's 
warm sweatshirt weather 
Dylan thanked me I loved 
pitching buckets of tennis balls
ducking as the hits fired
from aluminum bats
which wintered in 
the outdoor toy box
under a yard of snow
catching  and batting 
gloves inside
on October steps

Riley says he doesn't really
want to do that is bored
Is Sata bored?  Yup
What can we do?
Learn poker?  Yahtzee
is a preliminary 
Go ask D to print poker directions 
Sata to the attic looks for Yahtzee
Dylan goes to call Mum
says she will be home 
in five minutes
Find Yahtzee which is 
a good challenge 

Directions for poker
will take a dozen pages!
No No   Just ask 
for beginning poker
Two pages
You only left me one bottle 
The other one has fluid
needs batteries   
O

Discover that Riley
who has memorized
some multiplication and division
of the fancy Core Mathematics
tutored by Grandfather Ph.D
for the two day examinations
coming this week
cannot add a column of numbers
What about addition?
What use is the elaborate math
for the practical tower
of numbers which will tell
who wins the game?

Riley calls Mum
says she will be home
in half an hour
Riley takes the iPad
Dylan plays Yahtzee
Sata wins everything
not knowing that the next
morning Riley will
score two Yahtzees
earn one hundred
and fifty points!

Mumma does come
In time for a ninety minute
walk to the end of
Bianchini Road
so sweet with south
easterly stung cheeks
and a tired chihuahua 


*Chuang Tzu, Basic Writings, Burton Watson, trans., Columbia University Press,
N Y, 1966, p.91


Melissa de Haan Cummings
8 April 2015

Melissa de Haan Cummings majored in French and English Literature at 
Bryn Mawr. She has published poetry in a number of journals. 
 She describes her interests as including, “much small boating around Cape
 Ann, love of Charles Olson, Hatha yoga practice since 1969.”

Parade 2014 Dennis Flavin

[huge slow flakes of snow float straight down]

huge slow flakes of snow float straight down

this windless morning

thick on the trucks

Joe and Dylan walk in it

Joe rolls snowpeople balls

Dylan flops down

for snow angels

first big fall of the season

check on the snow person

O it’s half the height

of the yellow slide!

Riley sits on his knees

on the fourth sphere

Dylan heaves snowballs at him

the three take off to find more snow

flakes thin supposed

to continue all day

the little snow person

has sticks for arms and fingers

both sport Patriots helmets

Dylan runs up the hill

stops surveys the guys

runs on

flakes thicken

a tiny avalanche

slides off the triangle

shaped boat cover

my black buddy told me

her kind is lazy

shiftless and

wears loose shoes

Game on!

Stop in Beverly

for hard boiled eggs

salt coffee and a hot

chicken sandwich

What’s up with the Pats scandal?

O everybody does it

The Pats got caught

What it is is

each team gets nine balls

They give them to the ref

Fifteen minutes before the game

the ref gives them the balls

So they could both

deflate their balls!

Yah.  They do

according to what

the quarterback wants

The balls have to be

between twelve and

thirteen pounds

Of pressure?

Yah

How come it isn’t

what the receiver wants?

It’s what the quarterback wants

Cape Ann Mites

defeat Marblehead Mites

six to four

but our goal keeper

chastised by

Coach Dad

for staying inside

the crease

is sulky

as well as

frustrated by

the four goals

Grampy said

he was so so

the Marblehead goalie

was pretty good

Is so so better

than pretty good?

Grampy remains Mum

Before sunset

snow becomes rain

helmets and heads

roll off snow bodies


Melissa de Haan Cummings
24 January 2015

Melissa de Haan Cummings majored in French and English Literature at 
Bryn Mawr. She has published poetry in a number of journals. 
 She describes her interests as including, “much small boating around Cape
 Ann, love of Charles Olson, Hatha yoga practice since 1969.”

Reflections 1958. Milton Avery (1885-1965)

On the eve of my seventy-sixth birthday

on the eve of my seventy-sixth birthday
twenty degrees Fahrenheit
northeast wind fourteen nauts

for the first time in twenty-five years
I skated on Days Pond
up the street from my house
probably skated there
for the first time about forty
years ago standing with
Buddy Silva’s wife Barbara
while her Brian and my Joe
skated as five year olds do
all of us chatting

so today my seven year old grandson
warned me to be careful
as he led me across the ice
to a lovely dock
be very very careful here
that’s twenty-five carefuls
because it’s twenty five years
lace his and his brother’s skates
O you tie them just the way Dad does!
How many ways are there?
O lots of ways.
Here’s the puck!
It’s stuck in the ice!
Dylan!  Get it out!
Dylan got the puck!
O Good!
I got the puck!
There’s ice stuck to it!
Lace and tie my skates
and put one blade on the ice
Not standing on that.
Try the other.  Nope.
Turn onto my knees on the dock
grasp its corner post and then
down with a skate
Hold my hand.  O gladly.
Now bend forward
Two hands on the stick
Don’t bend too far
Are you comfortable?
I’ll let you know
Are you having fun?
I’ll let you know
I bet you’re having fun!

There’s Nana with baby Colton!
Here, Sata, give me your stick
Riley puts his and my sticks
under his arms parallel to the ice
for me to hold.  I hold happily
am glided to Nana

Are you ready to play hockey yet?
Not yet. I’m practising.
OK well this is how you go backwards
It’s called C ing.  See the marks my skate makes?
That’s a C.  Ready for the crossovers?  No.
Dylan performs one.  Hockey now
What’s that board?
We use that for a goal
The other goal is a pair of shoes
I have a big pair of shoes
You can play goal because
you won’t have to skate.
I drop my stick.  Oh-oh.
I’ll get it for you, Sata.
Thanks

After an hour the boys are cold and leave
Riley having me untie his skates
so his hands won’t get cold
although they do when they
have to squeeze a foot into a shoe
Leave the puck on the dock
Take up my skate guards
and skate them to my big boots
Put guards in boots
push both toward Nana’s
with my stick where the reeds
are frozen into the ice and
where there is an upright
two by four to sit on
able to bend where
the security of the reeds
makes a solid floor
Sit on the board and
successfully remove
skates remembering
twenty five years back
to wipe down the blades
with my green tissues
having practiced thirty minutes more
very slow and o so pleased to have
met the challenge as turning thirty
I jogged around Walden Pond
turning sixty I leapt from a boulder
at Cambridge Beach onto Danger Rock
where my father rescued me from
the outgoing tide when I was
probably five or six

Then I took a two and a half hour
woods walk with Marge
delighted to have warm
and functional feet
nothing adverse but a tired back

Sata!  Did you have a good time?


Melissa de Haan Cummings

Melissa de Haan Cummings majored in French and English Literature at 
Bryn Mawr. She has published poetry in a number of journals. 
 She describes her interests as including, “much small boating around Cape
 Ann, love of Charles Olson, Hatha yoga practice since 1969.”

Gloucester Mansion. 1924. Edward Hopper (1882-1967)

Engineering

The string behind the back of the bench
Keeping its uprights from splaying.
The underwear and tees
Folded in half on the laundry line
Reachable only from the stepladder
In the thirty degrees and less
Where it will not dry until
This winter weather turns mild.
Copper tubing outside the wall
Horizontal under the upstairs sink
Because it was too much trouble
To put pipes inside
But the hot and the cold
Run to the faucets.

Uncle Jimmy tied loose circles
Of string around both upper
And lower doors
Of the refrigerator
So aging Re
Could not open them
On her nightly prowlings.
He put an open padlock
On the loop
Through the hasp
Atop the cellar stairs.
And the upstairs bed
Was moved to the dining room.

Wisps of dark
On a pale blue sea
As if the wind
Is writing.

“How was your Thanksgiving?”
“Boring.  How was yours?”
“Boring.”
“Well.  I spent
The whole day cooking!”
“Nobody helped?”
“Nobody!  My daughter
Went to his parents.
Richie slept on the couch.”
“Did he eat?”
“O yeah.  They all ate.
It come out good, though.”

Sprained ankle slow
Prompting gratitude
And the behind dog
To trot ahead.

Air under thin ice
Water under dark ice.
The easterly horizon lavender
To pink to pale blue.
The westerly setting of sun
Covered in dark gray
Which will not disappoint
Kimi and Harry
Who like the peace
Of this time of day.

A slightly perceptible ripple
Under the perfect
Mirror of cove water
Is not a fish
Marks the rock
We played on.

Lavender becomes gray.

He claims the laundry dried all right
Although one clothes pin was frozen.

~ Melissa de Haan Cummings

Melissa de Haan Cummings majored in French and English Literature at 
Bryn Mawr. She has published poetry in a number of journals. 
 She describes her interests as including, “much small boating around Cape
 Ann, love of Charles Olson, Hatha yoga practice since 1969.”