FREDERICK COUNTY LIVES AND TIMES
Shannon in Walkersville
August 1984
Shannon, Shannon, oh what a pretty, cute, small young lady you are.
Age five, full of life, so happy, many questions, excitement and wonder.
Strawberry blond hair, tiny little baby brother, from where you wonder.
Shannon, Shannon, how sweet you were to show me so much concern and care.
During that week I moved in and became your neighbor in Walkersville.
Shannon, Shannon, oh how lucky you are to be in pretty Walkersville.
Walkersville, Walkersville, so great thou art, of churches, quiet streets, shady lawns.
Landscape, architecture, small town uniquely Americana at its best.
Preservation, renovation, freshly cut lawns, caring people, early to bed, early to rise.
How lucky I am to have my new neighbor Shannon and to live in Walkersville.
Picking Blueberries
November 1988
Past Woodsboro lays a blueberry orchard
Emanating a blue sheen each July.
Equipped with pails I venture from the road
To where patterned rows of blueberries lie.
In what must be like squeezing milk from cows
Tens of blueberries shower into my pail.
For few cents per pound and blue-stained fingers,
I get a freezer filled with quart-size baggies
Of blueberries to last a winter’s tale.
Friday Night Fevers
November 1988
He packed his car full of his friends last night,
and they headed where so many were going –
out. Streets overflowed and lit up with light.
Northward on Market Street crowds were cruising
to their favorite Friday evening hangouts
to be pressed in like sardines until closing.
Then with tornado-like fury traveling
down route twenty-six roared the homeward crowds.
They woke me up at three a.m. feeling
mad and pained by these Friday night fevers.
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To Art at Frederick Community College
January 1989
One thousand feet above Socrates’ grounds
the reflecting hawks soar.
Light off their wings create
new and beautiful colors
for frenzied-feeding ducks below.
Our hawks have put to rest in this place
hanging flamingos and their friends.
One thousand-foot high monuments
for waddling-by ducks to perch up on.
We need our empty altitudes filled
by these high-flying hawks.
Their new, riddle-ridden nest
should increase their numbers
and will raise our inner heights.
Yard Sales
December 1989
Gathered things no longer needed,
offered in the front yard,
hoping to attract the passer-by
into a transaction of disordered simplicity.
Re-circulating feelings of accomplishment,
one proud of his gained aggrandizement,
the other happy with his fleeing obsolescence,
both reflecting our mysterious impulses.
In Routine
July 1990
Creamy-brown coffee
splashes on
my blue shirt,
as I rush
past morning’s christening hour,
into each day’s path
and a moisture-dimming view
from my car.
Bobbing in and out
between encrusted and
like-minded sojourners,
we survive the trip –
struggling to pick up speed to stay level –
work bound
down route fifteen.