“Calhoun Family Forest” for Monadnock Conservancy
by Rodger Martin
Mar, 2021
Calhoun Family Forest
Gilsum, N.H.
After leaving pavement and parking of Route 10,
after marveling at the great vault
of the stone arched bridge lording
century-and-a-half over the roaring Asheulot,
slide onto the squish of March mud ruts,
frosting on a frozen base hard as granite,
and walk upward along side White Brook
yet to infuse itself with the tannins of this land.
Always upward, follow a nuthatch’s arcing flight,
its hungry call, upward to a hard-crafted stone
stairway and its moss where children and grandchildren
rushed for their midnight summers’ dreamings.
Upward to Porcupine Falls, spring melt spurting
through a small split in the rock; sit awhile, think
of the child you once were, that person you have lost,
let them frolic a bit in the glen, and then,
rested, walk with them back down.
Calhoun Family Forest—almost a sonnet
After the line of late day squalls, a close,
blue breeze skits between crust lichen and moss-
covered limbs. It echoes dappled sunlight
afoot on duff untouched for generations.
Elsewhere too, the sanctity of lost song
tugs at the eaves of crowned oak and maple.
And what of the feldspar, garnet, beryl,
and smoky quartz? Crystals withdrawn on sites
which beget lanes and highways to transport them
to skylines, those grand, monumental shots
to nothingness. Let the mica remain,
let it glitter among the tourmaline—
faceted testimonials to what
we’re not—predating all we’ve ever known.
Calhoun Family Forest III: The Legends
A fecund, lunar vapor stirs the nostrils
as the trail winds its way to Skull Rock:
Keeper of Stones,
Guardian of Granite Outcroppings.
It marks each traveler
approaching its iridescent broomfork,
“Is this one worthy?”
And for each who passes,
the story door opens.
1.
An azalea sphinx flutters across stone steps
to the bridge. It alights on the other side,
contemplates the flame of the sun.
Is this the innocent heal-all?
2.
A swift courses acrobatically through timbers,
locked in its search for sustenance.
Each sudden twist a possibility,
each a future somewhere else.
3.
In a dank hollow beneath the ledges,
generations of quills wait
for the boy hiding from his seekers.
A brother earns his name.
4.
A man and his hiking stick return
after wintering with his daughter
on the tidal flats of Virginia. Each day
finds him walking with memory of her mother.
5.
One warbling vireo gabs gossip
with a black-throated green warbler—
cousins in tenacity and woodland chatter
carried from before the Abenaki.
6.
A road led to Sullivan in the age when travelers
did not concern themselves with comfort, a track
children skied from hilltop to base not concerned
with anyone or thing coming the other way.
7.
Such a road could lead to Switzerland’s
solstice moon setting an alpine meadow aglow,
where the blue shadow of an angel
suggests the perfect spruce for Christmas.
8.
Parked aside a logging trail in the older growth,
a green jeep waits on a forester and small boy
learning to mark trees. Instead, the boy learns
a different compass and true north.
9.
Above the falls, behind the ledge, five islands
among the wood stubbled rivulets become stardust
for five children. Each island, a tiny spiral galaxy.
Each galaxy, a stepping stone to their expanding universe.
Rodger Martin’s new book, For All The Tea in Zhōngguó, 2019, follows The Battlefield Guide, (Hobblebush Books: 2010, 2013) and the selection of The Blue Moon Series, (Hobblebush Books: 2007) by Small Press Review which was one of its bi-monthly picks of the year. He is a New Hampshire State Council on the Arts (NHSCA) roster artist and a touring artist for the New England States Touring Foundation administered by NEFA. He has received an Appalachia award for poetry, a NHSCAs award for fiction, fellowships from The National Endowment for the Humanities to study T.S. Eliot and Thomas Hardy at Oxford University and John Milton at Duquesne University. His work has appeared in journals and anthologies throughout the United States and China where he also wrote a series of essays on American poetry for The Yangtze River Journal. Visit Rodger here: rodgerwriter.com
As a land trust for southwestern New Hampshire, the mission of Monadnock Conservancy (monadnockconservancy.org) is to work with communities and landowners to conserve the natural resources, wild and working lands, rural character, and scenic beauty of the Monadnock region. We care for our conservation lands, and we engage people in ways that strengthen their communities and their connections to the land.