Beyond the South End

Kendall Merriam

 

South End Poet

Kendall Merriam was born and raised in Rockland, Maine. He has a history degree from Gordon College in Wenham, MA and graduate studies in military and maritime history at the University of Maine at Orono and Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Conn. He also received grants to study historical research at Colonial Williamsburg and the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Merriam has been widely published, including in Katyn W Literaturze(Katyn in Literature), a Polish anthology of literary works about the WWII Katyn Forest Massacre by 120 international authors, including Czeslaw Milosz. Merriam has written more than twenty books and plays. Most of Merriam’s work has a definite muse – family, friends, and strangers – with life’s larger themes of work, love, loss and death. On April 29, 2010, Merriam was appointed Rockland, Maine’s Inaugural Poet Laureate, an honor from his hometown Merriam cherishes.

(These two poems are from a new book by Kendall and Kristen Lindquist, Moon Viewing At 50 MPH. The poems in the book are all about the moon.)

 

CLARE DE LUNE

 

                             For Clare Howell

 

                             Ah! Tonight the riddle is solved

                             The moon is indeed waxing

                             Perhaps that is crystal clear

                             Because Clare is in the house

                             Just downstairs with Phyllis

                             Watching a film “Wisconsin Death Trip”

                             Brought down from Canada

                             For those intrigued with death

                             Or at least talk about it

                             As age is coming on

                             I tell them life is not an obituary

                             But it has no effect

                             Even with the brilliant summer moon

                             Added to fireworks

                             Across the  Bay on our Holy Ingraham’s Hill

                             But the evening smells delicious

                             Following a meal of fish, pasta and crab

                             Our stomachs are content

                             Why not send out messages of life

                             To everyone in the Universe

                             To be glad on the last evening of June

                             We are not inundated with the fires of Hell

                             Or the floods

                             From the same source

                             We are not rich with coin

                             But have luck

                             Better than any gambler

                             Friendship

                             After long parting of trails

                             Here the Lord Basho has brought us together

                             Along the narrow roads

                             Of our deep North

 

                             Kendall Merriam,  Home

                             June 30, 2012  10:32  PM

                             Listening to Fleetwood Mac  “Say You Will”.

                            

 

ROCKLAND MOON

 

Is the moon

Just past full

It is silver like

A rare coin of Greece or China

The surface of the Harbor

Is glistening

I wonder where you are

Just upstairs

Or a thousand leagues away

I  look at the dim room

Yellow tulips, maple

I hear the voice

Of a lonely woman

Who will cry

Exactly 52 minutes

Are you looking out

Your window

At this cool firework

I have arranged for you

Why did God put me here

Jotting notes of nature

Of the beauty of your mind

You smile

At this nonsense

Which keeps me up

Past pill time

Because I must tell you

Of the glow

Radiating out from my heart

Because life is beautiful

Like you

 

Kendall Merriam,  Home,

5/6/12  11:36  PM

Listening to a CD by Dido