Produced by Maine Poetry Central and Dennis Camire
This week’s poem by Kevin Sweeney tenderly explores a couple revisiting the towns, landscapes and people the wife grew up with. What’s most moving is the longing to return to places which one knows are so changed — or gone — and where one may never again belong.
It’s Gone
By Kevin Sweeney
It’s raining in Oxford County as we circle Lake Pennesseewassee
on “Around the Pond Road,” near my wife’s once unhappy home.
At a tiny cemetery, she photographs the graves of boys, one and seven
years. I imagine a rucksack couple arriving today, seeing a lake,
an empty brick farmhouse above, deciding this is the place to begin.
At five we go to Beal Street Convenient Living Retirement Home
to take Grammy Goodwin to dinner on her 83rd birthday.
From the Lewiston Sun Journal she has clipped a photo:
my wife’s youngest sister with other assistant managers
at the opening of the new Save-a-Lot grocery in South Paris.
After the restaurant, sadly out of Grape-Nut pudding, I slow down
by her former house to search for a weeping willow she’d planted.
It’s gone, she says, so we drive to West Paris for mountains at dusk,
say good bye at the Home after dark and leave for South Portland.
The new section of Rte. 26 skirts Shaker Village like an urban beltway,
shiny reflectors giving runway glow to unblemished black tar.
Some slow day we’ll go back to the old road in search of reunion
lonesome for a Grange Hall by Sabbathday Lake where I’ve yet
to swim at the town beach, pretending to be local before continuing
West to hills where this summer so many old farms are up for sale.
Dennis Camire can be reached at denniscamire@hotmail.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.