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  • Glimpses

Andree Robitaille Wood

~ Glimpses

Andree Robitaille Wood

Category Archives: Thousand Islands

Too Far the Remembered River

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by arobiwood in Thousand Islands

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Age, Companions, Heart, Mothballs, River, St. Lawrence, youth

How often did I hear words of dismissal
when I spoke of having a summer place
on the river
The place where remembrance lives.
Of course one doesn’t listen
when the urgency of encroaching age
interferes with rational decisions.
Of course it is too far from the present life in mid-country
to return to the northern dream where youth was spent
with lavish squander
on islands of mysterious importance.
But the place of dreams is never far from memory
arguing with the concept of too far away.
So which is it? Too far in space or too near at heart?
Of course we know we can’t return
or bring back the companions of old.
Yet there is a double reality here –
as in a dual dimension.
Youth living side by side with the reality of age.
So I suppose the time has come finally
to fold the linens and the memories
and tuck them away where
they will lie quietly
wrapped in the mothballs of put-aside.

ARW
2003

The Delay

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by arobiwood in Thousand Islands

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Pine Cooled Nights, Poetry, Seasons, Time

Our neatly scheduled lives that
correspond to seasons
Arrivals and departures to warm sun,
pine cooled nights
And holidays back home
Sometimes interrupted
For whatever reason – sometimes
urgent
Other times less so
But breaks in time-crashing routine
Somehow reset the clock of dwindling days
And make the measured hours seem longer.

ARW
2001

Abandonment

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by arobiwood in Thousand Islands

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Abandonment, Houses, Plank, Poetry, Souls, St. Lawrence River, Weeds, Wooden

Finally
In early Fall we returned to the river
The cottage shuttered and locked
since last August
Seemed, in the grey and windy afternoon
Shrunken into itself
As though it was aware of the Spring and Summer
spent alone.
Intrusively, tall weeds thrust themselves
through wooden plank steps
While inside the drawn green shades kept
minuscule light at bay
Just a brief visit of reassurance –
Certain houses have souls of a sort
They miss the humans who stay away too long.

ARW
1999

Water Levels

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by arobiwood in Thousand Islands

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Docks, Poetry, River, Shoals, St. Lawrence, Twigs

As if to atone for the last season’s river level
When docks, made to float, were sunken in silt
And cottages were closed in midsummer
Or left unopened
Lonely in the silence
This year the St. Lawrence flooded our small bridge in June
Making a miniature rapids for little ones to float twig boats
Now it is August and there are few signs of a diminished level
Rocky shoals still lurk just below the surface
Tricking the inexperienced boaters
Much like life
With wisdom grained and then forgotten.

ARW

Victrola Sounds

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by arobiwood in Thousand Islands

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Recordings, River, Rosa Ponselle, Victrola

Now it is late afternoon
in this dwindling day of summer
the light is intense
all blue and green
with shining river

Like a visit from the past
come the sounds of an ancient
recording
with all the scratches and imperfections
of early artistry

But the fluid and seamless voice
of Rosa Ponselle
melts the heart
as well as the years that have mourned
her irreplaceable presence.

ARW

Maple Island

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by arobiwood in Thousand Islands

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Boat, Granite, Island, Pine, Rock

Sometimes when skimming past
The island of happy summers
In a boat never imagined as a child
If I look quickly at the east end
Where the granite and pines
Slope down to the rocky shelf
And the river teases the pink stone,
I can see, in a scene of black and white
Superimposed (over the green and blue of now)
Two young sisters
Standing, laughing on the rock
With the long-gone canvas canoe
Pulled up next to them.

ARW

End of Season

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by arobiwood in Thousand Islands

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Leaving, River, Summer, Wind

Time on the island
is down to a few days
no point in stating the obvious
about summer fleeting

There was a chill on the river
with northeast wind
lowering the water level
and grounding our larger boat

So it is with heavy heart
that we prepare to leave.
Such a long time to wait
until the river is high again.

ARW

Late Spring

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by arobiwood in Thousand Islands

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Birdsong, Green, Limbs, Spring, Winter

In early evening
Sitting on the green chair
With birdsong all around
I noticed that the stick horse had gone.
I guess that he exists only in late fall
When trees and bushes undress
In preparation for winter
And tentative sprinkles of snowflakes
Try to cover the sparseness of bare limbs
with a white warmth
But now green is everywhere
An abundance of springtime
And the cycle reports itself
Again and again.

ARW

Epitaph

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by arobiwood in Thousand Islands

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Blue, Epitaph, Flowers, Graveyard, Island, St. Lawrence

We came upon it by accident
While following a trail along the
length of the island.
A small graveyard on a granite hill above the river
With generous stones marking the places where the
unforgotten lay
Well-tended with patches of island flowers
Those small orange colored ones that
fade so quickly when picked
One of those intensely blue days on the St. Lawrence
when river and sky are nearly one
That is why the epitaph on one small stone
has never left my memory
Describing the short life of a young boy with the words:
“He loved it here”.

ARW

The Young Mallard

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by arobiwood in Thousand Islands

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Afternoon, Compass, Dock, Ducks, Flock, Rain

Early this morning
in the gray of a steady rain
I saw a solitary duck
probably one of the dozen
who fed all summer
with the wise and watchful mother.

He was feeding with purpose
like an automaton dipping up
and down in the shallow water
near our dock.

Was he banished from the family group?
Did he grow restless
and swim off using his own compass
for direction?

Later in the afternoon
arrived the rest of the flock
I counted and there was one
duckling missing

This omission didn’t seem to disturb
the symmetry of the leader’s parade
and the remaining followers –
unmindful of the desertion.

ARW

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The Author, Poet & Archaeologist

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Valley Ranch, Wyoming
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Sisters & a dachsund
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Chicago Eleganté

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