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Bar Harbor Passage
by Tom Sheehan

On this graveled morning wire
and wind are quick partners
in Down East melodies.
How violent the stretch

of their voices, the high
reach of their alphabet,
and one Eli hurled above
October’s crackling grass.

Raw cries are ambivalent
in their coming outward
from thin fence wire, fixed
stiff as immovable idea,

and the wind moody as arias
or transient as hobos or gypsies
from the beginning of Time.
They touch me in the house

where mornings seep inward
the way forgiveness moves,
a slow mounting of steps,
a simple knock at my door.

Maine sun-ups need no intro-
duction to what they’re about.
Placid as icebergs, slow and
enormous, they somehow fit

you dependable as old gloves
you’ve broken in, hunting jacket
hanging beside the back door,
a wallet pawed for year on year,

one hammer whose handle knows
your palm with unspoken intimacy.
Mornings whistle and become
covenants with outlandish trees,

quick rivers holding their breath,
and all along the hectic coast
blue stones, underfoot, trembling,
all day long, trembling.

Other articles by Tom Sheehan:

• Front Stoop

• Late Night Guitar