Kendall Merriam: The Peach Tree
Was your back yard
the only one in Camden, in Maine
for this rare fruit
I always looked
when we came to Spring Street
was it because at one time
a magic spring in your yard
that you and your husband
bore beautiful children
I remember his photographs
from the war
which we put on our bedroom walls
being entranced by war
as many kids were
now you want to sleep
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.
Merriam has been widely published, including in Katyn W Literaturze (Katyn in Literature), a Polish anthology of literary works about the WWII Katyn Forest Massacre by 120 international authors, including Czeslaw Milosz. Most of Merriam’s work has a definite muse – family, friends, and strangers – with life’s larger themes of work, love, loss and death.
and approach the skies
that Dick took so many photographs of
do not be afraid
we go from life to life
trying to do good
can anything more be asked
Last Wednesday I was at Pen Bay
I gave a set of poems
to the only person in the cafeteria
who was not using an “electronic device”
after she read them
she came up to me and said
“Are you related to Gina and Doffy”
when I allowed that I was
She said they were good friends of hers
so your loveliness will be carried on
as a peach of a human being
and a blessing to the Heavens.
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