New England

When I tell you that I’ve left her,
that’s only half the truth.
Her mouth was like a pomegranate,
and her memory’s like its juice.

I’m stained by blood red sunsets,
by fields of green and gold,
her oyster beds and old stone walls
will haunt me ‘til the day I fall.

The snows of late November
are deep around my legs
and back roads lined with dogwood trees
keep winding in my head.

We found a seal pup in the sand
abandoned by its mother,
as kids collected fireflies,
then lovers under quilted covers.

Sometimes I wake to see the Sound,
or islands now long gone,
where Indians once paddled
under fireworks of dawn.

New England, maple fire, soft hills,
your rockweed covered coastline
still beckons me, and seagull cries
remind me of your sunshine.