Produced by Dennis Camire

This week’s poem is by Jenny Doughty of Portland.

Rangeley Lake, October

By Jenny Doughty

Clean tasting early morning air, sky

pearl-lined oyster shell, cloud touches

lake and hills on the far shore are lost;

grey silk water lips and laps rocks,

hush, hush, long low waves roll under

stretched-out wet wood jetty,

bobbing empty boat, rope-restrained,

bow pointing to open water.

Crazy quilt trees: dark green pine spikes

scribble over birches’ white and gold;

firecoal maple leaves curl over boulders,

float on the lake edge like burning boats.

A lone gull tips its wings to catch a breeze,

black-capped chickadees hustle bushes,

robins sing to wake the day, flirt

their white-patched tails in bursts of flight.

And I, shivering in the chill

of autumn’s coming, am watcher

of the year’s fading, part of the sky,

lake, trees, the flying and singing.

Dennis Camire can be reached at dcamire@cmcc.edu