Tuesday marked the vernal equinox, the official start of spring in the northern hemisphere. So, naturally, here in Maine on Wednesday night we had a dusting of snow. North of here, where my son is at school, they had a winter storm warning, about three inches of snow, and a base layer of ice to keep things exciting. A truck carrying french fries overturned on Rt. 95 South due to the slippery conditions; no one was hurt. I feel certain there’s a joke in there somewhere, but haven’t found it yet.
Last weekend was beautiful. It was warm and, despite a very foggy start on Saturday, we saw lots of sun. But nature doesn’t want us getting ahead of ourselves. Spring in Maine is not the same as spring in other places. It’s more like winter with a mean streak, teasing us with just enough warmth to make even a lifelong resident forget for a moment that we’re not really out of the woods until May. You go to bed having spent the day raking in the garden, freeing the new shoots from last fall’s leaves, and you wake up to six inches of snow or a frost so hard it nips all the buds that have formed. Nature’s favorite April Fools joke up here is one final blizzard.
March sees a few hardy blossoms. We have crocus, miniature iris, and snow drops. Our neighbors’ sunny front garden may see a few daffodils this month, especially right up against the brick foundation that heats up in the afternoon sun. But we won’t have cheerful yellow daffodils in our yard for a while yet, and tulips are even further off.
We live in the city now, but we spent about twelve years in a suburb that is still quite rural in places. Out there we learned to cheer for a different kind of spring color, the posting of the roads. I wrote a poem about it maybe ten years ago. I recently shared the first poem I ever wrote. I’m pretty sure this is the second.
I hadn’t looked at it in a few years, so right away I saw some things I wanted to change. I’ve made some edits and feel like it could probably use even more. But, still, I think it succeeds in capturing something about this time of year in Maine that can be hard to explain to people in warmer places with less mercurial weather. I hope you enjoy it.
Posted You can tell it is spring by the bright splashes of color. You see them everywhere, like festive decorations adorning stop signs and telephone poles. Blaze orange rectangles against the gray-brown of shrinking, gravel-crusted snow, and the still bare branches of trees and roadside brambles. The words the same on each one, thick black letters read Heavy Loads Limited. It’s the surest sign of spring here. You hear people calling to each other across the grocery store parking lot. In other places they probably say The tulips are up! Or There are buds on the magnolia in the park! Did you see? In Maine we say The roads are posted! and give a cheery wave. It’s happy news to most everyone, except perhaps the drivers of the heavy loads. If you’ve a backhoe to deliver to a job site you may be out of luck until tax day, maybe later. Although I’ve heard tell of drivers who pull down the orange warning, and carry it along with them - an illicit passenger - to their destination. Then they repost it on the way out so that if questioned they can say with no lie It weren’t posted when I went through. Melt water seeps through spiderweb cracks in tired asphalt. It settles beneath the surface only to freeze with nightfall. Chunks of loose tar appear in the roadway overnight, and the edges crumble like cornbread. Someday they’ll have to repave this stretch, we say as we jostle along. But we know it’s safer as it is. A too smooth country road is an invitation few can resist. People would drive too fast. Somebody would get hurt. Even the local cars and pick-up trucks do damage this time of year. Wear and tear becomes injury. So imagine a dump truck carrying a load of gravel, a one-ton hauling a flatbed with a front-end loader, chained by its tires, like a creature restrained that might break free. You can almost see the road flinch. You can almost hear it groan. Heavy loads limited, it sighs. Until the water is wrung out of the earth, and the frost melts and trickles away and the bright hot sun of summer softens the surface to something less fragile.
This sestina is kicking my butt. I hate all my chosen words and I am getting nowhere. At least, that’s how I felt up until yesterday morning when things started to crack open. What a feeling! I stared at those dumb words for weeks. I deleted every attempt to start the poem. And then yesterday I made myself write a first line and then changed it almost immediately. But then I started working on the second line and realized I was feeing something like inspiration. I’m two stanzas in now and I can’t say exactly where it’s going, but we’re on the way, which feels good. This is my second sestina and, like the last one, I’m describing something that isn’t really from my own experience, or not strictly, iteratively from it. It’s as though the format of the sestina is so demanding that I’m forced to grasp at straws and loose threads and see where they take me. I imagine there is a similarity to ad libbing a scene in the theater. It’s both freeing and constraining at the same time. It’s a weird feeling.
What I’m Reading:
I’m into Kate Christensen’s latest book, Welcome Home, Stranger. It’s a story about a middle-aged woman who returns home after the death of her mother, coping with all the complications of having not come home sooner, of not having supported her sister or mother through those last difficult months. It’s either going to be way too close to home, or exactly what I need.
I try to keep a volume of poetry on my desk for when I need a break. This week I grabbed Human Chain, by Seamus Heaney off my shelf and have wondered why on earth this is the only volume of his that I own. Time for a trip to the bookstore, I think.
Here on Substack:
The Fall: Notes from an Elder Care Crisis was so familiar and so sad.
’s piece is tough reading, but it is also such an affirmation for anybody who has taken a similar journey with an aging parent.
I have been thinking about
’s piece on the burden of loneliness ever since she posted it last Friday. I have been back to read it over a second time and keep seeing things in my life that remind me of it again and again. It has been the push I needed to reach out to people I haven’t heard from in a while. Her account of a shared moment with a neighbor during the pandemic took me right back to those strange days and to my own cherished moments of connection. It is thoughtful and sad and inspiring all at once. You should read it.
The community of readers and writers here on Substack who show up for each other each week can feel like a bit of a miracle to me after writing in near solitude for so long. Thank you all for being here.
Happy Reading! See you next week.
Wonderful, as always, Tara! "the edges crumble like cornbread" is a great line!
I've enjoyed your older (oldest!) poems recently. It's interesting to see the themes and threads you've been working with over the years.
Tara, It's so fun to witness someone else's experience of the world, the ecosystems, the seasons. And to virtually, through their words, live somewhere else for a moment.
I am intrigued by the line 'softens the surface to something less fragile'. It's a beautiful line. And there feels like there is a zen truth in it that applies beyond roads. It's actually something I'm going to meditate on for a while.
And I agree, Substack is a beautiful community to be part of as a writer. :)