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Published by Pregio Press North Bennington, Vermont 05257
Printed in the United States of America
Village Journal
living and walking in a community
For Lyons, Amie, and Evie
ILLUSTRATION TREE
Wood Block Print
Bare trees against the half-moon’s light shimmering on the running river
Introduction to Village Journal
This collection of poems is not a diary or a journal that gives a chronological account of my adventures. It is more a notebook of my experiences over three-plus years living in the Village of North Bennington, Vermont.
Taken narrowly, the contents seem random, but they all represent a consistent viewpoint: close, careful, focused, open visual and aural observation. My walks are slow; I stop frequently to examine what lies before me, turn to look behind me.
I approach my subject matter village, people, creatures, the land convinced that everything I encounter contains a mystery and that if I am fully present, it will reveal itself to me. I’ve discovered that life is full of magic, loving moments. These poems are short stories that try to point to that reality.
I’m blessed to be a witness and pray a poem will speak to you.
Marshall Witten
Close Watching
You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity Or carry report. You are here to kneel Where prayer has been valid. -T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding I
The sun unleashes bright creation light in quiet woods disturbed only by the crunch of my tread on the trail.
Across the gray-green churning river, a lone bush flaunts three bright yellow tri-part fronds that nod and sway below a frost-desolated hillside.
I am at one with the restless river, the animals, plants, the earth and winds. The breeze carries my melding the way love carries surrender.
I meet the holy with close watching the life around me and the ground beneath my feet.
Fox Snow Hunt
Fresh ankle-deep snow, on top of trodden icy tracks, makes walking tricky in overcast, flat deceptive, light, uneven terrain.
I follow fox footprints forty feet until they turn to track a rabbit’s trail into the dense thicket of the marsh.
Ice and poor light leave the meadow bare of dog-walkers, hikers. I soak up the solitude and quiet, climb to the slate outcrop marking where I spread Charlie’s ashes, wish his spirit peace, remembering his love, poodle devotion.
I’ve asked my family to scatter my ashes here with his, to join our spirits with the meadow’s.
Patience
Patience is a discipline, a gift, prepares the mind to calmly live with all that it cannot control: success in the hunt the corn to tassel the rains to come.
October Morning Walk
Twilight, a pause when stars and Venus slowly fade as day is born, summons me to rise for yoga, meditation, mindful morning walk.
A belted kingfisher blue-grey, white collar, dagger bill, spike-crested, like a punk rocker usually perched over the water looking for prey, is on the lawn, exploring the swale adjacent to the river for frogs, crayfish, newts.
Later, a young woman approaches on the sidewalk, smiling as though she knows me.
I’m sorry to startle you, but you look exactly like a friend I haven’t seen in ages and recalled in conversation just last night.
I’m sorry to disappoint but glad to evoke a pleasant memory. Enjoy this lovely day.
On the high meadow, the day blooms clear and fresh. Alone, except for a small white butterfly, I pause to view the muted brindle mountains.
I follow the butterfly and come upon a woman beside the trail contemplating a small green clearing. I start to retreat, not wanting to intrude; she’s flustered, explains she’s meditating. Palms together we exchange namastes.
Walk Meeting People
Up West Street to the high meadow I encounter stiff breezes, scattered dark-bellied cumulus clouds. Four crows fly from the valley to a leafless maple. At Charley's slate outcrop, I pause and bless him, hope his spirit is at peace.
On my way back I pass a lower field where four crows, spaced like the corners of a square, graze, unconcerned at my proximity.
As I walk down West Street’s arched arbor colonnade, an elderly couple approaches, the tall lean man leads, carrying what looks like a Leica M3. He smiles and strokes his clean-shaved chin. I like your beard; you’re beautiful. I smile, thank him, ask if he’s using black-and-white or color film.
Only black-and-white, it’s digital.
His short, stout wife walks three steps behind, bent, with two ski poles, a fur-brimmed bonnet framing her broad smile, bright eyes. I return her smile with Lovely day. She says You’re beautiful. I grin, say So are you.
First Snow
Yesterday afternoon the snow started, a half-inch overnight, light flurries all morning. The snow is thicker as I near high meadow, but the blanket grayness varies enough in the low ceiling, to distinguish trees and snow lines on the mountains.
Cross-country tracks head downhill, no returning trail. The forest floor records each passing creature. I walk over the culvert draining the swamp, hear water splash-gurgle for the first time since the drought began months ago. A small white butterfly crosses my path, disappears into the woods.
Like a pile of blowing leaves, a host of sparrows swirls across the trail and grazes as I approach, then gathers, moves with me maintaining a steady distance, a random escort corps de ballet.
Bud Briggs’ Bench
I meet Phyllis and her two black labs on the meadow. The dogs had been in fresh rain water, shake, splatter both of us with mud.
We walk higher up the slope. She’s on her way past Bud Briggs’ bench, visible up the hill at a break in the woods, where trails lead west and south.
Phyllis, do you ever find a dime in the knot on the bench?
I knew Bud when I was a kid. Used to watch him work the property. I’ve seen bench dimes from time to time. His son says they hold no particular significance for his family; he doesn’t know who leaves them.
I move downslope toward the marsh, meet Alisa, Helen, and their dogs; ask them about the dimes at Bud’s bench. Alisa wonders if Naomi might be the one who leave dimes, to honor the memory of her daughter. Helen finds one inside her pocket, says she’ll leave it there.
Later I see Naomi at the trailhead. She’s seen dimes at Bud’s bench, not put one there herself. Next day, there’s a dime on Charlie’s outcrop. Three days later, none in either place.
Daily Beauty
Steam fog rises off the rapids at dawn as Orion fades into the morning’s promise. Last night’s snow fresh sheets the land. There’s a palpable sense of the river sprit’s presence in the churning rumbling waters, early light.
At the fountain, Jenny cautions slippery spots up towards the Mile-Around; I meet the coffee-mug lady; she, too, warns of icy spots.
I find good walking to the meadow in clean, still air after the storm. Clear light makes distant mountains seem closer than they are.
The meadow grass is changing from green to beige, its winter color. I check for turkey flocks feeding on fields across the valley.
Leaving the meadow, I cross the culvert draining the swamp. Drought’s stream-flow barely whispers. In the Mile-Around bright sunlight infuses the woods, including the beech still clinging to its winter foliage, with the tint of the rust-red rug of dead maple leaves covering the forest floor.
A man walks down the Mile-Around with two Bernese who pull strongly on the leash. I caution, the dogs could take him down.
He claims he’s OK. I’m good.
The Gingko Sheds Its Leaves
In autumn it forms a protective scar on all its leaves and stems. The first hard frost detaches every leaf.
A uniform ochre color, the fan-shaped fronds become a golden, snow-like shower, piling in a large mound around the base, leaving the naked tree with broad, open crown above a rounded pyramid, like a girl who lets her frock fall to her feet.
Coffee-shop patrons on the village square, next to the fountain and the ginkgo, guess each year the maidenhair frost’s killing date.
GINGKO IMAGE HERE
Cold Morning
Seven below, mist billows up from dam and rapids, coating trees overhanging the river with a thin ice layer, outlining every branch and twig and trunk, reflecting dawn’s light.
Below the glittering trees, the river spirit skims over the waters behind the gauzy screen, her voice, through the dam’s and rapids’ rumbles, masked, mysterious.
Red Maple Perseveres
Its soft red-orange changes with the sun, never quite the same at any moment of the day, as Monet knew, calling me back to check color shifts.
Three years it took to grow so tall. Its slender trunk rock perched precariously, on the stone plateau behind the rapids with little dirt to hold its roots, it won’t last long.
River Otter
I awaken to steady snow. The slanted streaks of pulsing energy, bolster my spirits.
A sleek, dark brown river otter darts along the stream’s south bank, bursts into the water, wades frantically, and swims upstream, feeding left and right on food too small for me to see.
Later, I met Liz and Walter walking up West Street in the snow, greet them smiling, Beautiful Day.
Liz gives me a dour face, Depends on your perspective.
I respond: You’re vertical, ambulatory, in good company. Be grateful. She smiles dryly.
I leave for Charley’s outcrop to ponder sky, sleeping mountains, pastoral landscape, then walk carefully in blowing snow, flat light back down the field, wishing I had a board to slide on down the hill.
Back home, two sled tracks lead from the driveway to the pond’s edge, stop short of swimming with the otter.
RIVER OTTER PICTURE HERE
Rainy Day
December 19th, temperature 55 degrees. Heavy rain, strong winds wipe out the remaining four inches of snow cover overnight. But rain and melt, bring slight drought relief.
The river flow and level pick up quickly, make the rapids whiter, wider, faster, louder, sweep detritus over the dam’s lip. Large limbs lodge below the dam; smaller debris gets carried over the rapids, where some is captured spinning clockwise by a countercurrent created by the shoreline.
The trash will circle unpredictably, depending on the weather, water flow, and earth’s unruffled spin. I’ve never been able to catch the moment of escape; I take my eyes away for an instant and it’s flowing downstream like a conveyor belt.
On West Street I clear small wind-pruned branches, from the pavement. Farther up, three large limbs are down and block the road. I drag them clear, pick up the smaller pieces.
Returning, I approach a woman smiling broadly, picking up her pooch’s poop. Arrested by her smile, I pause to celebrate the rain. She says we need many more days like this to end the drought.
Sun Salutation
It’s windless, cloudless, six degrees. Walking on meadow snow pack, I turn east into the sun. My legs feel the rush of heat from direct and reflected sun rays.
The crows are quiet, no wildlife in sight. Footprints show fox, vole, rabbit, and deer have been about.
The mountain tips are covered with snow, visibility is unlimited, the air clear and clean. No one else is on the hill: a sunlit gift of solitude.
Silence
In the meadow, eight degrees, sun, calm, steam mist floats slowly silently, inside the woods with no apparent cause.
I have the quiet landscape to myself, puzzle over what I see, yield to its beauty, the wholeness of what is.
Being alone and the sense of solitude add subtle colors to the moment, inspire the awe and wonder of first sight.
Windows
The river’s alive with movement; its sound thrums in heart and ear. The steep, snow-covered, wooded bank underscores bare trees, the dark-pelted river otter scurrying along the shoreline searching for food.
I watch flakes fall on rapids decorated with intricate ice formations. A rivulet rushes under a frozen spray arch thin enough to see the water flickering, coursing underneath.
The sun streams through a window facing south, warm and bright on blue and red hyacinths, yellow tulips, and a tall amaryllis, tightly wrapped, about to pop.
Careful looking, quiet thought open another window to an underlying reality of wonder and great mystery.
Winter Walking with a Mouse
Snowing hard, ground slippery from repeated hiker traffic and melt-freeze. I put spikes on my boots, step carefully on the trail.
I’m alone; the snow shows tracks of rabbits, fox. Day care, counseling service, school are closed. The coffee shop is open.
Five blanket-covered horses stand ridge-top, heads down, haunches to the freezing wind. Sleet raps ratta tat tat tat on my hood and parka.
A lone mouse scurries here and there, sometimes on, sometimes under the fresh snow, ignoring me, with no discernible purpose or goal.
Eventually its random roving ends up at a pasture fence, a post surrounded by dead winter grass; there it disappears.
The Loaf
When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.
Daniel Webster
Tuesday afternoons I buy a loaf of artisan whole wheat cinnamon-raisin bread. The smooth hard crust of this heavy oval mound splits wide during baking, forming patterns on top of the regular rounded surface. Sensual scent, touch, raisins speckled on the surface, interior riddled with dark cinnamon swirls, chewy tan crumb, finished with a sparkle of white flour. It needs no toasting, butter, jam or jelly; a thick breakfast slice with coffee holds till lunch.
Two crows sit a bare limb. One sounds caw, its mate completes their couplet. They continue in this alternating pattern, extending heads, expanding throats with each unhurried call.
A hundred yards away other crows, repeat the pattern keeping up call and response.
IMAGE OF CROWS
SECOND IMAGE
Fifty yards farther I see a barred owl fly across a span of meadow, perch at the peak of a maple, watching, waiting.
Shared Stories
Light snow last night left a clean blank slate on the old snow cover, perfect to conjure who and what caused creatures to come out during the night.
Fox, rabbit, crow left distinctive tracks. Rabbit and crow meandered near, not more than five yards from where first their feet appeared, no journey or evidence of foraging apparent. What prompted them to go abroad?
The fox trail is compass-straight. clear, and neat, south to north atop the pristine white, unhurried, perfect, equal, measured strides, across the road to another field.
Successful hunt?
Search for a mate?
Trek back to lair?
Where the fox’s track crosses the road at the trailhead, someone’s leashed dog’s prints show interest, excitement after the fact.
I make tracks home, happy with the stories I imagine from these clues.
TRACKS IN SNOW IMAGE
Rabbit
A bald eagle soars over the upland meadow, hunting under overcast sky, in strong, blustery winds. A lone maple buds in the midst of eighty still light-ochre acres.
At the culvert, the sound of water gurgling from marsh to pasture heartens me after the trickle flows of lingering, frozen, quiet months of drought.
On the trail at this point six weeks ago, where fox tracks turned to follow rabbit’s into the wetland thicket, a two-foot circle is now littered with a bunny’s soft bloody, belly fur.
The predator was hungry, the prey unlucky, the violence routine, the kill nature’s way.
The Return
At fall’s first hint we ceased to see them. Today in concert with the rapids’ background rumble, mist, one-degree temperature, two pairs of mallards appear, glad spots on this overcast December day.
They casually feed along the river’s south edge, paddling in and out of little coves, eddies, pockets formed by fallen limbs, independent but always aware of where the others are, a four-bird flotilla, almost invisible on the river’s cold, green-brown surface in dull light.
Eventually they catch the main current, paddle swiftly downstream towards the Walloomsac River.
Walking in the Rain
Mid-March, in steady drizzle, fifty degrees, The rapids’ voice is up, the rain increases, wets my face, sounds tat tat-tat against my coat.
I’m startled by unexpected bling-bling as water droplets from a stately maple strike the lid of an ancient hung sap-bucket.
A quarter-sized, nondescript, beige butterfly lies exposed, on its side in cloying mud.
It flaps its top wing fruitlessly, slowly, then in frantic bursts, attempting to get upright and airborne.
I sense its spark to live, survive; mourn its falling from the sky on fragile tissue wings, pause to respect its looming death.
Flat Light
Last night’s snow fell eight inches deep, left low ceiling, calm wind. Standing on the top of the meadow in the remnants of the storm, I can see three miles.
The snow’s unblemished white, the sky’s light shade of gray, give a different modulation of the monochrome. The sun’s about to peek through thick, hovering clouds.
The trees are dark, but branches laden with snow vein the woods and temper monotony. It's quiet, no birds about, not even crows. The solitude is striking.
There are no shadows, so walking in snow deep enough to make terrain appear completely flat and featureless makes it difficult to step as though there are no holes, dips, undulations, underneath, to be sure you’re on the trail.
Field Trip on West Street
March 5th, fifteen second-grade kids from the village school walk, in an accordion-like expanding-contracting line, to the giant maple-tree arches on West Street, The trees are tall with great girth, more than a hundred-fifty years old.
They cluster by the stone wall with their teachers, taps, and buckets, learning how to make maple syrup. They tap the trees, taste raw sap, grasp why it rises in spring’s freeze-thaw cycle.
They see that after they collect the sap, it’s boiled down to syrup and bottled, or maybe turned into candy, sugar, cream.
They hang a dozen old-style galvanized peaked roof buckets. Two per tree, one on the west side, the other on the east, somewhat lower down.
A week later the kids are back, emptying the buckets into a large tub on a little red wagon.
By month’s end the season’s over, the class returns to pour the last sap into their wagon, excitement unabated, working together.
FIELD TRIP ON WEST STREET IMAGE
The Parade
Dawn rises behind an obscuring cloud on a breezy, warm mid-spring day.
I’m walking on West Street into the sun, down from the Mile-Around.
Ahead on the wide, down-sloping pavement I see two silhouetted upright posts in the middle of the road, two feet apart. As I draw closer, the posts become the necks of two Canada Geese. Their bodies gradually materialize, waddling uphill. Finally, I see six goslings close-ranked between them. They turn off in perfect formation, line straight, space uniform, like well-trained troops into a field, disappearing in tall grass, leaving only the parents’ slender necks visible, parentheses around their march.
THE PARADE DUCKS IMAGE
April Mallards
April dawn, cool, cloudy, calm, the dam’s overflow provides a steady drumming above the rapids, accompanying their foam and splash.
Almost invisible in her camouflage coat, a gray mallard floats on the gray-green surface of the swirling water below the rapids.
She circles in the current, flap-hops up on land, disappears behind the house. A drake joins her later on the pond behind the dam. They move to the far shore at my approach, vanish in the overhanging growth.
Later, on the near bank, the drake snoozes in the sun. At twilight he grazes on the pond, sure-footed on the dam’s slick lip, then flies upstream.
Two
Duck Illustration
September 19 Journal
During dinner on the deck we watch a great blue heron fish the river with slow, deliberate, almost imperceptible steps, lightning spears with its sharp beak. Dusk rises, we gradually lose sight of him in darkness.
We sit in the dark listen to the rapids hypnotic rumble; decide it’s time to go to bed.
Heron Illustration
Spring: Rising Patterns
I.
Mid-May: chilly, steam mist on the river. A single smoke plume rises vertically in the quiet village until a brief puff tips the top, curling it into a question mark.
II.
Under calm, clear skies I hike the path dividing the broad spring meadow. Red-wing blackbirds protest intrusion near their refuge, rise and settle over nesting sites like giant black ocean swells, in sync with my approach and passing.
Night Attack
Midnight moon’s illumination is twelve percent; I’m on the deck with rapids’ soothing sound, the woods’ silence.
A desperate screech intrudes from some creature in a tree thirty yards away across the river; two more screams before an eerie silence.
I suspect a young barred owl botched cleanly killing a squirrel, resulting in three shrieks while the owl ripped it apart alive with its cruel, curved beak.
Persistence
When I first saw him, two years ago, Sam walked painfully, hesitating, his left leg out-swinging, wobbling. He used ski poles to control his balance as he moved doggedly on the trail. Over time he walked with only one pole, then carried a single pole collapsed.
Today his hands are empty, his stride is vigorous, his limp less noticeable. I’ve admired his discipline and tell him he is much improved. He smiles, thanks me, says he’s working hard to learn to move his leg more normally.
River Fire
Sunrise breakfast on the deck as I look upriver over shallow water, along the shelf between the dam and rapids, under canopy trees in morning’s shifting slight first light. I savor hot coffee, look upstream.
The sun’s low angle lets rays break through in spots that light the cusp of ripples curling on uneven rock. Ignited wavelets erupt in dancing, weaving, orange flashes, snake slowly downstream with the rising sun, lighting the shade beneath the trees.
Hunting Zone
Chipmunk skin, neatly cleaned, head missing, all the kill’s high protein value gone, lies on Mile-Around’s access trail.
A few yards farther on, litter of squirrel fur scatters along the trail, gently breeze-stirred, as though the creature’s spirit lingers still.
At the wooded loop, I turn toward the meadow trail, hear behind me breathing sounds like mine. Then THWAP, a glancing blow on the back of my head. I think it’s a tree branch, look back, see nothing.
Ahead on a branch twelve feet above the trail, a barred owl eyes me carefully, mumbling, “You stand on sacred ground,” not “Who cooks for you?” then moving to a higher branch.
I wonder if it is defending hunting territory or nesting site, or signaling me to be aware of what’s below the surface of things, the interconnectedness of all creation.
House Guest
Good Morning! A black spider greets me from the bathroom basin where she’s trapped after falling in, searching for water. The sink’s smooth sides too steep to scale. She attempts slow creeping and fast charging.
She’s an eight-eyed hunter, not a spinner. Attempting to escape, she tumbles gracefully with powerful tucked long legs, like an accomplished acrobat.
I help. She jumps on the countertop, pauses, then flashes away down the stone wall, disappearing into the crack between the cabinet and the quartzite. Sharing the house with us, she will prey on flies, ants, earwigs, beetles, and small spiders.
Time Share
Morning, a fourteen-inch snapper lays eggs in the flower bed adjacent to our back door, uprooting basil, chives, clematis. She leaves, then chipmunks quickly dig up her eggs. We restore the garden, but she comes back, lays eggs, and chipmunks return, cycle repeats.
Lunch on the deck, the larger male, with white-marked neck, cruises the pond perimeter below the rapids, lurks around.
Dinner, eight ducklings, merganser hen fish the pond. The ducklings dive continuously, surface with silver fry, tear and grind their prey to bite-size. They pause periodically in a small cove on the river’s south bank, then continue their feasting with splashing dives, submerged pursuit. At dusk, they gather in the small shallow cove covered with dense foliage.
Breakfast, day two, the merganser family sails from the small cove, repeats its feeding pattern with yesterday’s enthusiasm, a rapid, wide-ranging search for fry.
Nearby, the big snapper periscopes its head. The merganser ducklings continue feeding but the hen reconnoiters the riffle downstream of the rapids’ pool, sees the snapper, flushes, flies downstream.
The ducklings briefly continue fishing, then float over the riffle after the hen.
The ducks do not return till afternoon. The hen arrives alone, looks around, flies out; shortly thereafter, her brood swims upstream, repeats its feeding frenzy, catches a silver fry almost every dive.
Toward twilight, the hen returns, floats along the riffle as her ducklings, one by one, flow downstream. After the last one leaves, she flies to join them.
In sixty to eighty days a new generation of snappers will emerge from the nest just laid in the flower bed.
August River Observations
A long hot summer with sparse rain, green growth wilts, bare ground turns to dust. The millstream past my home shrinks a foot.
The streambed that drains the upland marsh is drought dry, shows deer tracks instead of flowing water to feed the river running past my house.
On the long rock shelf between the dam and rapids, a sandpiper grazes in the slow, shallow water, while a juvenile great blue heron fishes still pools, until flushed by a mallard hen and six adolescent offspring in a raucous, manic feeding frenzy over the entire rock plateau.
A kingfisher moves upstream from branch to branch to our deck railing, searching the living water, then dives for minnows, crayfish, baby trout.
A female snapping turtle roams, lurking for animals and plants within her reach a silent threat to ducks, small fish, and crawdads.
Three does, three spotted fawns ford the river, graze the gardens, squat to pee, drift back, drink deeply, forage downstream, disappear.
DOES IMAGE
August Walkabout
This morning no water spills over half the dam. The rapids’ diminished splash mirrors the land’s dryness. The river level is down a foot. Tree leaves hang curled, clothed in lifeless brown. The hilltop meadow overlooks a mosaic of parched mowed fields, wooded plots, and farms.
I see Billy on the trail; we talk about the drought and how he carefully uses his well water, the lessons of a finite resource.
An inch-and-a-half snapper wanders in the middle of my driveway. I carry him to the back yard, to the forget-me-nots’ wet habitat.
Later, during two circles of the countercurrent, at the foot of the rapids, his father filter-feeds in shallow water for plants and animals above and below the surface.
When the drought ends, higher, faster, water will stir up more food, make grazing less difficult. The sun sets, darkness rises from the waters. Quiet lies upon the land.
Kaleidoscope
Scattered clouds form floating breaks of rich blue sky through which the sun shines ever-changing shafts of light over the quilted pastoral landscape.
Last night’s rain cleaned the air, and left lawns green, the trunks of leafless trees still wet. Mid December, 45 degrees, it feels like April.
A red-tail hawk flies the meadow’s breadth at tree-top height, each wing-flap flashes its white underbelly. Landing at the peak of a tree on the verge, he perches
facing me, white chest flagged amidst the solid gray of the stand of naked maples. No other fowl dares fly or cry across his hunting range.
The not-yet frozen turf yields underfoot, a suggestion to step softly on the slippery earth, be mindful of the spirit dwelling there, and see the world as alive, a miracle.
White Butterfly
Walking high meadow’s crest alone a quarter size white butterfly startles eye level left. It summons me; I follow and come upon a woman meditating. I back away embarrassed; she says Peace be with you.
Another day I discover the wetland drainpipe splashing, signaling a break in a year long drought. The small white butterfly appears and passes into the thick tangle of the marsh.
A later time I stumble upon a white butterfly stuck prone in mud and feebly flapping its top wing, unable to extricate itself. Witnessing it dying, I mourn, and feel my vulnerability and death.
BUTTERFLY PICTURE
Looking While Walking
Glare blinds me as the morning sun hits white clouds above the mountains. Retracing yesterday’s route after the storm, I find across the walkway a twelve-inch, ten-foot dead maple limb.
Later I find an twenty-inch tree, snapped ten feet above the ground, that took a smaller healthy tree down, both across my path, two widowmakers where I passed safely yesterday.
Three crows on a woods road flush when a barred owl swoops. They all escape. Later, on a farm road, four crows feed. As I draw near, they lift off one by one.
A cottontail I see regularly, whose nest is near the trailhead, waits until I make the distance between us much shorter than usual before it flees too young to be so bold.
RABBIT PICTURE
Stone Skipping
Clear blue sky, no wind, lake surface smooth, two-hundred mostly local people, dogs, perch on Paran Lake’s sloped grassy shore, waiting for the National Stone Skipping Contest to begin.
A guy in a rowboat trolls slowly back and forth across the skipping range.
Casual carnival atmosphere: T-shirts and bathing suits, barbecue, ice cream, soda, watermelon, candy from Paran’s concession stand, a jumble of families, babies, young children, graybeards.
A guy in a rowboat trolls slowly back and forth across the skipping range.
Hyper grade-schoolers run through the crowd, clusters of teenaged girls share blankets, gossip, spectators skip stones, swim off the dock, blow soap bubbles.
A guy in a rowboat trolls slowly back and forth across the skipping range.
Contestants hail from US, Canada, Japan, Europe focused, serious, friendly. They compete in bouncing rocks across the water. Some stones skim clear across the lake. The crowd applauds, cheers each contestant.
A guy in a rowboat trolls slowly back and forth across the skipping range.
A winning throw must score near forty hops, “counted” by three judges from the best of three throws. No prizes here, all just for the sport, the boasting rights.
A guy in a rowboat trolls slowly back and forth across the skipping range.
Fragile
A dove feeds on the edge of a West Street driveway, walks-flutters-hops across to the other side, continues foraging. Its movement doesn’t look quite right. I stop to watch it eat and then walk farther into the yard; normally it would fly by now.
Naomi hails me at the meadow, asks about my health, says she broke her left wrist in February walking backward while training her dog. Inconvenient not being able to floss her teeth, type, lift anything with her left hand. We muse about the fragility of our bodies, our civic life, the world in which we live.
Retracing my route home, I scan that yard and getting closer, see a movement that reveals the dove scurrying under the house porch: it cannot fly. I wonder how it ends?
DOVE IMAGE
Acknowledgements
I am deeply indebted to my wife, Elaine, for her faith in my work, her encouragement, her patient ear listening to trial lines, her gentle counsel, her thoughtful review of the manuscript, and her enthusiastic collaboration in creating drawings and the cover for this book.
Thanks also to Ann Cooper, editor, for her insightful suggestions and painstaking attention to the manuscript.
I owe my deep appreciation to Cindy Hill, for her insight and help in the layout and printing of the manuscript.
I am also grateful for the members of my biweekly poetry Sestet whose friendship, thoughtful commentary, and encouragement helped shaped the poems in this collection.
Praise for Village Journal
The shape of the river’s swirling current. The texture and depth of the snow, and the footprints seen in it. Seemingly idle words in a passing conversation. The color of the kingfisher and butterfly. Words spoken to and by another passerby. These are the particulars, the concrete details, that make these poems rich, and which lie at the heart of the best poetry. And while there is a seeming distance in the matter-of-fact manner in which they are brought to life in Marshall Witten’s beautiful collection a simple chronicling of life (and sometimes death) in a small Vermont village that tone only belies the greater depth that lies in wait below the surface. Like a trout in the swirling pool below Witten’s deck waiting to snatch a mayfly that tumbles below the foam, these poems will swallow whole the unwary reader. Or even the wary one.
–Matthew Dickerson, Professor, Middlebury College; Author, Birds in the Sky, Fish in the Sea: Attending to Creation with Delight and Wonder
About the Author
Marshall Witten enjoys the creative process and lives to write poetry at an age when he can no longer don the youthful disregard of death. His years give him a perspective to write poems he could not have contemplated 20 years ago.
He lives riverside in North Bennington, Vermont, practiced law for 55 years in Vermont, served in the state legislature and on local, state, and national public service boards. Retired now, he has the time to devote to poetry. Sources of inspiration include yoga, meditation, and long walks every morning on the Village streets, wooded trails, and meadows.
He spends his spare time with music, theater, photography, and other visual arts. He’s been married 69 years to a wonderful supportive woman, whose sculpture and painting have always inspired and delighted him. Her drawings enhance this collection, as have her comments on his poems.
He shovels snow, when necessary, and writes poetry because it’s always necessary.
About the Artist
Elaine Franz Witten paints in oil and watercolor and also renders ink drawings. In addition to the illustrations in “Village Journal,” she produced illustrations and covers for Marshall Witten’s previous books, “My Mind’s Eye,” “Reflection on Change,” Remembering Harvey,” “How I See It.” She also has illustrations in two editions of “Poeming Pigeon” in 2023 and 2024, published by “The Poetry Box,” Portland, Oregon.
Elaine is a National and International award-winning sculptor in bronze and painter in many media. One of her bronzes is in the collection of a member of the Saudi Royal Family. Her sculptures have also been bought by the United States Department of State and given as gifts by President Barak Obama. In 2025 Elaine’s bronze portrait of Robert Frost was added to the permanent collection of the Bennington Museum.
