Vox Populi
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Dawn Potter: Why, as the evening steps forward,
as the late noise of traffic, of shrill birdsong,
dies away, do I always recall
those brief summers, when the old folks
reclined in the grass on the hill, and the fireflies
blinked and fizzed among the overgrown
bean plants, among the stubbled fields?
Where did they disappear to, those portraits?
In what attic do they hide—the snapshot
of Aunt Joan’s bunions thrusting against
her vinyl espadrilles like grotesque
thumbs? the tobacco splatter
on Uncle John’s white shirt?
Oh, we were children then,
and yet we judged everything—the terrible feet
of old ladies, the paunches of old men,
and our own parents, not old yet, but weary, nerves frayed,
overwhelmed by the requirements of obedience.
Who gave us this world,
shabby outhouse, collapsing chicken coop, a barn musty
with ancient hay? Who gave us the power to grow up
and lose it, a life that seemed endless,
slipping out of our grasp before we even knew
what we were holding? . . . those blue mountains,
July’s vanishing light.
~~~
Copyright 2025 Dawn Potter
Dawn Potter is the author or editor of ten books of prose and poetry–most recently, the poetry collection Calendar. Her memoir, Tracing Paradise: Two Years in Harmony with John Milton, won a Maine Literary Award in Nonfiction. Dawn lives in Portland, Maine, with her husband, the photographer Thomas Birtwistle.
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Dawn, this is fabulous! I have been working on a poem that is in many ways thematically akin, and now– since you have set the bar so high!– I will have to keep working at it for a while, I see.
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Thank you all so much for your kindness–
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As Dawn is our trusty tour guide, stepping forward through her memories, I’m hearing the musicality . Of many great lines, the one that grasps me most is this one: overwhelmed by the requirements of obedience. To say this of her parents is brave, and mysterious, too. Life viewed with its chicken coops and outhouses can evoke a fine poem.
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Dawn always manages to “transport” in these poems to places where the past is present and the present past. How I wish we still had fireflies—getting rid of one thing has gotten rid of many others. Poetry like this fills an absence.
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The fireflies that used to rise from my backyard wild place are gone, but her poem, plus your reminder, have them flickering again. Like so much else in her poems and yours.
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Oh, the shining details and heart-tugging music of Dawn’s poem! How I adore this and all of Dawn’s work.
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Well-said, Meg. I’m a big fan of Dawn’s poems as well.
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Remembered summers. Dark, the cool grass between toes. Night scent of jasmine.
Memories don’t fade as much as they mix with touch and scent, a browning soft gardenia in my hand, and damn I love the lines already mentioned by others.
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Lovely!
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The same lines: “a life that seemed endless, // slipping out of our grasp before we even knew / what we were holding?” The details took me there, and hope is my answer. An extraordinary poem.
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It really is extraordinary.
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“a life that seemed endless, slipping out of our grasp before we even knew what we were holding?”
I remember shabby outhouses and being determined, then disappointed, at six trying to fell a broomsedge field with our dull sling blade and lying in bed at night in fear, wondering if the Russians were going to drop the atomic bomb on us that night or if God would descend and cast me into eternal damnation for my failure to “believe.” I also remember sitting in the front yard after dark; my mother and father in the swing talking about their childhoods, me in the old wooden Adirondack chair daddy built from scrap watching his glowing cigarette tip dancing in the dark.
Daddy has been gone for decades and Mom is being buried today. She was 99 and still cherished her memories as I do.
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Sending hugs. I am sorry about your mom. Lost my mom in 2012, dad in 2007.
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Thank you, Leo. I’m sorry to hear of your mother’s passing.
>
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I love Dawn’s poems for their elegant craft and precise music.
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Yes, the music.
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