Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: The Great Rock in the Woods -- for Matty Goodman

Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate

In this week?s poem Henry Braun of Weld links the presence of a great stone he encounters in the Maine woods with friendship.

The Great Rock in the Woods by Henry Braun

It sees nothing where it has been seen
by all eyes in the climax forests
that pass in slow succession after fires.
Even the white bear may have known it
glazed by the last touch of the glacier
that, miles away, broke it off the mountain.
The story of its roll down here
to this surprising presence,
its ride with the field of stones
that made Maine hard to farm, and again hard,
is soon told.
                    I take this boulder for a landmark
and pass by
in the deep woods on my road to friends.

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © Henry Braun. Reprinted from Loyalty: New and Selected Poems, Off the Grid Press, 2006, by permission of Henry Braun. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Special Consultant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at mainepoetlaureate@gmail.com or 207-228-8263. Take Heart: Poems from Maine, an anthology collecting the first two years of this column, is now available from Down East Books.