Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: 1940 and Rained Out

Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate

Today’s column features two members of the “Salt Coast Sages”: Sharon Bray, from Orland, and Gerald George, from East Machias. Their poems were inspired by characters born and bred in Maine.

1940 by Sharon Bray

After they left the roller rink
and drove out of streetlight range,
he showed her Orion,
the one constellation 
she still could name
into the year she died.

He could have seduced her
on the back seat blanket
of his downhill-fast Model A.

 
Instead he gave her one ripe orange,
which she took home to her mother.

Rained Out by Gerald George

After the Red Sox
blew their season
by losing three straight
in the playoffs to Chicago,
it rained for days.

“Coincidence,” I said
over coffee down at
Archibald’s One-Stop.

“Think what you like,”
Homer Jones replied,
buttoning up his slicker.
Then he walked out
and never spoke
to me again.

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Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “1940” copyright © 2008 by Sharon Bray. “Rained Out” copyright © 2008 by Gerald George. Poems reprinted from A Rump-Sprung Chair and A One-Eyed Cat, Black Dog Press, 2008, by permission of Sharon Bray, Gerald George, and the Salt Coast Sages. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 207-228-8263.