Please enjoy these two poems that are a part of Poultney Poetry Downtown. This month poems are exhibited in the shop windows throughout Poultney. 

When Hurt Happens
 
When hurt happens
There is no sense to wallow
It's better to breathe deep and swallow
The clock ticks on in forward motion
That is where to envision a notion…
Ah platitudes and limpid advice
Does not diminish the uncertain path
There is no answer that can be certain
One must just get on with it
Open the curtain
Trust the light will show the way
A gift is every new day
 
 
Troubled Waters 
 
The whirlpool gushed its roundabout route
Tumbled down a narrow shoot
Dashed upon the steep rock-side walls
Ending in a raucous falls
 
Would that be the case with humans -
Rousting, roaring, creating wars
Then crashing hard upon the foils
Spilling down a sluice of melted frays
To land in a quiet pool -to cool
And hopefully mend our ways
 
               By Ruth Hamilton 

Here are two additional poems included in the Poultney Poetry Walk. These poems are featured in the storefronts on Main Street in celebration of National Poetry Month!
​
EARLY MORNING LIGHT

The tape recorder floated on your pillow, a buoy in an ocean of hospice
Spinning out Robert Frost, reciting his best of, and your favorite, “The Road Not Taken”
 
Years earlier, you had pointed out the green-and-gold marker to your son
Honoring Robert Frost that you had written, as you had other markers
 
Stopping the car on snowy evenings to read the script that you oh-so-carefully crafted
Never using a hyphen at the end of a line, even when the line went begging
 
But you just turned your buggy of words around
How proud I was of you then, Dad, and how proud your son is of you now
 
Swaddled in bed clothes, like in your first photograph
Ninety years ago, as you brought your raft about
 
To take on the headwinds far from the easy cove of coma
And out into the open sea of your brain tumor
 
All hands-on deck, but only these two from your far-flung past
Your wife of sixty-five years, your son twenty less than
 
But both pulling for you these last thirty days
Remaining vigilant by your moored craft
 
“How much longer?” I asked the nurse
Standing in the shade of the mainsail, she placed her hands
 
On the fallen warrior’s yellowing feet: “I would spend the night,” she intoned
Her words filling up the silence in the late afternoon sun of the hospice room
 
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”
 
 Burnham Holmes
 Poultney, VT

 
As Winter Wanes…
 
Stunning whiteness blankets the land.
Little bird prints scamper  
On a fluff topped crust
Where, outside my door
A cup of seed I thrust
The birds puffed up, round balls with beaks
A sign on this mid February day
The temperature has peaked, is dropping-
But not for long, or should I say,
Don’t be forlorn?
Spring is coming round the bend of the moon
It will be here soon
And so our gardens will adorn
The forgotten snow
With blossoms having supped the melt,
Offering colorful jewels
In the season of renewal.
 
 
Ruth Hamilton
Poultney, VT

Today we feature two more local poets. April is the month to celebrate poetry and we have again organized a Poultney Poetry Walk in the storefront windows downtown. We hope you enjoy getting out on these lovely spring days and finding the poems posted along on Main Street. 

Self-Care
Some days it feels like a foreign language
I'm asked to practice, with new words
for happiness, work, and love. I'm still learning
how to say: a cup of tea for no reason,
what to call the extra honey I drizzle in,
how to label the relentless urge to do more
and more as useless. And how to translate
the heart's pounding message when it comes:
enough, enough. This morning, I search for words
to capture the glimmering sun as it lifts
above the mountains, clouds already closing in
as fat droplets of rain darken the deck.
I'm learning to call this stillness self-care too,
just standing here, as goldfinches scatter up
from around the feeder like broken pieces
of bright yellow stained-glass, reassembling
in the sheltering arms of a maple.

James Crews
Shaftsbury, VT

Orion's Belt
Orion’s Belt holds us
The three sisters
We sister three 
Love life
Love love
Love us sisters three
Bonded by the stars
Bonded by our light
We sisters three
Give life 
Give love
Give strength together 
I Alnitak
She Alnilam
She Mintaka
We look to the Night's sky
Visible in early hours
Through the Northern Winter
And again by the Southern Summer
Alnitak An I am first   
Joining our strength and love
Protecting our history 
Alnilam my little sister
Most luminous as the sun
Her beauty known to all
Massive across the sky's center
Little Mintaka
Completes our celestial history
She embraces the light and continues our story
Portent of our good fortune
We sisters three shine together
 
Krista Rupe, Poultney

Here are two more wonderful poems that are part of our Poultney Poetry Walk. We are celebrating poetry throughout the month of April. 

"The Good Cat"

I watched the cat torment
A mouse under paw
An enjoyable treat
For his tooth and his claw

How had the mouse sinned
That God killed it so?
I pondered on this
'Til the good sun sank low
 
“My Journey"

The snow came down
In the deepening gloom
The mountain kept watch
Staring down at the doomed

When the sun returns
I will travel on
When the sun returns
I will wander long

A gift to the damned
Is that journey
 
Chris Edwards       Putnam Station, NY

April is the month to celebrate poetry. Again this year, SVA has created a Poultney Poetry Walk. As you walk through town you can spot the amazing poems from our community in the local storefront windows. 

Here is one of the poems submitted. Enjoy!

​The Path of Poetry
 
My shadow tells me there is light, and so all morning,
I follow it. Finally, a high-noon moment of clarity,
truth, always here right under my feet. But truth
cannot save me. Confusion, like my shadow,
has a mind of its own and soon returns. No rest,
it seems eager to reach out, to engage darkness. 
 
And so it goes with writing a poem. You lay
out a path of broken lines and follow them
down the page, trying to say the unsayable.
Just when you think you've got it, you realize
another line, a next word even, will obscure
all meaning. Still, you cannot help yourself.
 
In time, you arrive back where you began,
only to discover that while you were gone
nothing changed, yet everything is different.
The end is always a good place to begin again.
 
David Mook   Poultney, VT