Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: Divorce

Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate

Today’s poem about dividing the spoils after a divorce comes from Donald Crane, who lives on the Down East coast above Milbridge.

Divorce by Donald Crane

She got the path to the spring house
through the asters and fireweed
and the orange “touch me not.”

The grey smudges that are deer
at the far edge of the pasture at dusk.

The broad leaves of the rhubarb plant
where early in the morning
the swallowtail butterflies lie
motionless with their wings spread
to dry.

Redtail hawks overhead; jays fussing
in the apple orchard gone wild.

And from the kitchen window; the faint
haze in September over Tunk Mountain
20 miles away.

I got pigeons and starlings in the Bangor
city park, and a job stacking boxes
at the Mall.

---

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2008 by Donald Crane. Reprinted from Puckerbrush Review, Winter/Spring 2008, Puckerbrush Press, 2008, by permission of Donald Crane. 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.