On this first morning before sun rise.

I wake.

Morning air unmoving over the dark lake.

Water moving slow, quiet, breaking under hemlock.

Stones in clear water.

A bird squeals sweet in the trees.

Quiet.

Across the lake, dark hemlock.

Stones in clear water moving slow, quiet.

On this first morning at the lake, dark mountain distant, gray sky distant.

Water breaking.

Sun rise, sky bluing, without sound.

Morning air unmoving.
Mankind needs some quiet space
Development threatens the connection between nature and man.
Since April is National Poetry Month, one might ask why a poet would live in Maine?

As an active 11-year-old boy living in Auburn, I would ski the hills in the neighborhood with friends. We would sometimes venture farther from home into the woods.

One early morning after a new snow, we came upon a crowded family ski area. We were not used to skiing with crowds so moved on.

I became separated from my friends and was suddenly alone among snow-capped firs, facing an open field of new snow, which glistened in the sunlight.

My mind was excited by the beauty of the white snowfield lighted by the sun. I felt I had come upon a paradise.

Then I was aware I heard no sound. I heard silence. I was also aware that I had not heard silence before. And I felt peace with the silence. I was an active boy, with the noise of the sandlot my companion, so this silence was a new experience.

I stood on my skis in the silence, seeing the beauty of the new snow on the trees and in the field sun lighted, feeling peace. I felt the world was new.

I knew that if I crossed the field, however, I would mark it. I did not want to disturb the beauty of the paradise, but wanted to cross in the silence, to participate in this very real beauty.

So I skied slowly around the edge and did not have to disturb the beauty. I participated in paradise, and I preserved it.

As an 11-year-old boy, I discovered the real Maine, the world Henry David Thoreau valued, the real, natural world, before I had read Thoreau.

Today, I, as human being and poet, hold that silence, peace and beauty of Maine within myself. I have written poems that spring from that source, which I value more than my many other poems.

I believe that the real silence, the real peace, the real beauty I experienced, can experience, inherent in the Maine nature, in creation, is healing for the fevered human being, for the society, running desperately for money, sex, power and war.

Today, I walk along a brook just off the road into the woods and hear the moving water over rock and around earth, sunlight falling through the leaves in patterns of light and shade, falling on the moving water, and know that silence, peace and beauty.

I can walk in creation, in nature, experiencing the colors, textures, shapes, movement, rhythm, of Maine nature. I can walk in the slow lane, the natural lane, of Maine.

I can return to nature, which is the same as myself since I am nature, return to creation, as I am created, moving in the world that is natural to me as a created being, communicating with a world that I am familiar with through my own creation.

But, the agitated rhythms of modern civilization running desperately for money, sex and power are obviously bringing unrestrained construction with the clear-cutting of nature, the unnatural noise, the machines, negating the silence, peace and beauty, the natural sounds, wide black highways snaking deeper into the woods with speeding cars and rambling trucks.

Maine nature is viewed as a financial opportunity with new parking lots and cabins in the wild for tourists to have the comforts of their suburban and urban lifestyles.

We are constructing an unreal, artificial world between ourselves and nature so that we are not able to live in, to know nature as we are meant to.

We must experience nature on its own terms to gain the silence, the peace and beauty we need as human beings. We must communicate with nature as nature communicates with us in order to be real human beings.

We are obviously in danger today of losing our connection to nature, to our home, to our creative source, as we run desperately to construct an artificial reality here in Maine to satisfy our need, our greed, for money, sex and power.

Thoreau reminds us that we lead “lives of quite desperation.”

But, poetry, here in Maine, can return us to nature, to our nature, to real experience, to home, for I can ski into the woods, into the silence of white snow and sunlight. I am here.
Tom Fallon is a former Maine Times poetry editor, recipient of two Maine Art Commission grants, author of two poetry volumes and the Web master of classic and contemporary Maine Poetry resources at www.mainepoetry.com. He lives in Rumford.

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