For Kitty Fassett, My Writing Partner

I was invited to climb Mount Katadin (KADDN)

the holy spot

for Maine’s red paint people

where their God Glooskap dwells

it  was a lovely day

cool, just right for exercise

we had a comfortable ride

from Orono to the parking lot

at the base of the mountain

by the time we got to the trail up

to Chimney Pond

I was already winded

after a short pause

we started up over slabs of stone

tumbled like a graveyard

whose monuments

had been overturned

by juvenile delinquents

my companion, short and wiry

kept waiting for me

there were other hikers

including a woman

heavy with child

who easily passed me

along the unmarked passage

as I grew weaker and weaker

I almost stumbled

only to be mocked by a whiskey jack

finally 1,000 feet from the top

I said to my guide

I can go no further

so we turned and went down

as we passed the pond

we saw three bears

a mother and two cubs

foraging in the dump

paying us no mind

as we left them behind a female moose

came out ahead of us

and showed us to safety

in the parking lot

when we got in the car

I slumped down 

in the comfortable leather seat

exhausted and bone weary

today I prayed to my Baptist God 

though I am no longer religious

that the dead of Poland

killed by Russians, by Germans

rise up in spirit

rise up in flesh

I do not know if my appeal will work

for I am no God, no Jesus

just an old man in small town Maine

who loves Poland

whom others didn’t

maybe it will work, maybe it won’t

but thought it worth a try

for my friends

Catholics and Jews

soldiers, social workers and poets

People of the Book

people who love horses

was this the reason I was put on this Earth

I like to think it was

I have been called insane, a fool

been beaten, drugged

but here I am still writing

the words that come to mind

without revision

today God has made it

warm and sunny

Kendall Merriam was born and raised in Rockland. He has a history degree from Gordon College and pursued graduate studies in military and maritime history at the University of Maine at Orono and Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Conn. He received grants to study historical research at Colonial Williamsburg and the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

I like to think he has done this

to welcome the dead back to life

get the chill out of their

grave-ridden flesh and bones

and be alive again

 

Kendall Merriam, Home, November 6-2020 12:00 PM (exactly)

Listening to silence.