A Sunday Afternoon Poem

Come along, let’s hike
Forbidden property again this year.
We’ll sit on summer porches if we like,
Now that the coast is clear. weymouth

Our chins and cheeks will numb
But come, let’s walk some distant neighbor’s land.
We’ll view his view and taste the odd beachplum;
You need not hold my hand.

We’ll walk the winter shore
Beyond the wild grapes withered in the gale,
Embalmed bayberries even birds ignore
And eelgrass pickled pale.

We’ll ask each other why
(Of all the places in the universe,
Before our summer neighbor’s shuttered eye)
An island would rehearse

Interment every year
And reach our normal turning-point, the hush
Of cold Atlantic hours cutting clear
Across the brine-dwarfed brush.

If someone asks to know
What brings us strangers here in times of frost,
We’ll do what we agreed on long ago,
And tell him that we’re lost.

Dan Waters: In 1996 his poems became a regular feature of  “Yankee Magazine.” His recorded verses have been recorded for daily broadcast on the Cape and Islands' National Public Radio. his sonnet "Jellyfish" won first prize at the Newburyport Art Association Poetry Contest. He was West Tisbury's first Poet Laureate, serving from 2006 to 2009. Dan has published several collections of poems, and is currently honing his song-writing skills. This poem is from his chapbook titled "Needing Winter" (Westmeadow Press, 2005, reprinted with permission). 

Editor's note: We are looking for Weymouth poets for our new feature A Sunday Afternoon Poem. Please contact Margaret.carroll-bergman@patch.com if you are interested in submitting a poem.