Some great poetry over at dverspoets.com. Come read and enjoy!
–
Returning to the old house,
now still, vacant,
staring with unshaded eyes
upon a snowy front garden,
shrubs overgrown with the
lustiness of summer
now split to the ground
taxed with a heavy snow.
I tried to light the parlor stove,
cranky old smoker
clanking and rattling
in the best of times
now given up the ghost,
cold metal unyielding to wadded paper
and an old mouse nest.
Now the silence of the rooms
broken by hissing wind
whipping around eaves
rattling old bones in the attic,
stirring the haunts asleep in corners.
It took time for twigs to catch
water turn to coffee
bacon, eggs brought from the city
cooked in an old iron skillet–
tasting far better in the country air.
I looked down at hands cracked
in the brittle winter light,
moisture gone,
hair static with electricity,
feet numb from the cold
the woodstove not giving
more heat than an ice cube.
Walking down to Olsen’s pond,
Looking through the glassine surface
remembering the boy who had fallen
through while playing hockey
slipping under thin ice,
disappearing without a sound,
only noticed when our puck flew
High in the air
and he, the guard, missing.
We skated to the edge, threw bodies flat
trying to catch him just out of reach,
crying like babies, snot running down chins,
knowing he was floating just under the ice–
silenced like the lamb he was.
Childhood ended that day.
We drifted away to the city,
our skates and sticks put up,
Olsen’s pond deserted like a haunted minefield.
Fifty years ago I still remember
stretched as far as I could
belly freezing on treacherous ice,
grasping to reach a life just out of sight,
his muffler and stick floating to the surface–
The boy, the important part,
gone for good from a chilly winter’s play.
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2018
Tags: ", "Olsen's Pond", com, dversepoets, poetry
January 11, 2018 at 8:35 pm
What a truly chilling tale… a memory like that would haunt me forever… I spend quite a lot of time on ice in winter, but i wait until it’s solid enough…. I will have nightmares about being trapped under ice like that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 11, 2018 at 8:53 pm
A beautifully detailed, sad story, Jane.
I love the contrast in the lines:
‘shrubs overgrown with the
lustiness of summer
now split to the ground
taxed with a heavy snow’
and the description of trying to light the ‘cranky old smoker. with the ‘wadded paper / and an old mouse nest’. I also like the way you evoke the draughts in the house::
‘rattling old bones in the attic,
stirring the haunts asleep in corners’.
The poem shifts so easily from the house to the pond and to the past, ending with the shocking accident.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 11, 2018 at 9:08 pm
Devastating and beautiful, Jane. The narrator sounds haunted, still.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 11, 2018 at 9:33 pm
Thank you, Frank. The narrator is, still.
LikeLiked by 2 people
January 11, 2018 at 9:36 pm
Thank you, Kim. I had hoped you would be able to read this. I thought you could relate to this ‘type’ of poetry. And heating a woodstove. LOL! Thank you, Kim.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 11, 2018 at 9:38 pm
This poem chilled me to the bone, so descriptive I can feel the writers feelings.
So sad and dark, but beautiful still.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 11, 2018 at 9:39 pm
A slice of life, Bjorn, in the rural counties where I grew up. Some things in childhood are elevated by happening to the haunting stage. Probably many things and many more are suppressed in our growing minds. Childhood, back then, was not like it is now. Death, though to be avoided, was pretty common amongst most species. And sometimes our own. Thank you, Bjorn for reading this poem.
LikeLike
January 11, 2018 at 9:42 pm
Thank you, Enigma. For reading “Olsen’s Pond” and for sending such a empathetic comment. I am very thankful.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 11, 2018 at 9:46 pm
I feared as much. Much love to you, Jane.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 11, 2018 at 9:49 pm
Well, we have the balm of distance to tend to these things. And we can make poetry of them, which is the blessing and the antidote to ghosts. Maybe. Much love to you, Frank. A new year…..
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 11, 2018 at 9:50 pm
Indeed! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 11, 2018 at 10:21 pm
Our log burner is blazing at the moment and we are feeling a bit overheated! There isn’t much wind so I’m not sure why the chimney is drawing so well, even when it’s all shut down. Perhaps I’m just a firestarter! 😎
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 12, 2018 at 12:45 am
Wow. A chilling tale indeed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 12, 2018 at 12:46 am
Your welcome, it was beautiful!
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 12, 2018 at 1:00 am
Ah, geez. Such a disheartening memory of a special place that must have brought joy (the house, that is) sometime in the past. Your details were vivid, the house and the stove personified in a way. I loved this, sad is it was. I have a memory of a childhood friend that haunts me in the same way. I don’t know if I could tell the story as well as you. I have tried to, in prose.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 12, 2018 at 1:15 am
So many vivid images in this haunting piece.
LikeLike
January 12, 2018 at 1:54 am
Thank you, for reading and your comment.
LikeLike
January 12, 2018 at 1:58 am
Hi Victoria. Perhaps the trick is distance and time….and the fading of the horrors? I don’t know but the house was mine as I grew up in the wilds of rural NJ. The winters were always with something happening. Thankfully, this was rare. The blessing (and therapy …) for us is that we are poets….and we can use these things, good, bad and haunting in our work. I think this poem was the first that I realized how therapuetic poetry could be…. Thank you, Victoria. I’ll be over tomorrow.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 12, 2018 at 2:11 am
Thank you, Arcadia Maria. A slice of life in the past.
LikeLike
January 12, 2018 at 2:13 am
It’s drizzling here and the woodstove takes the chill out of the house. We are the keepers of the woodstoves, but I think they own us, not the other way around! LOL! And i think women make better fires in them then men.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 12, 2018 at 2:45 am
This is a gripping tale filled with sadness. I imagine it would be hard to carry this memory through the years. It is not something one would ever forget. Your attention to details really take the reader there to Olsen’s Pond.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 12, 2018 at 7:37 am
I agree. I am the one who stacks the logs, lays and lights the fire, and then keeps it going. I am the god of hell fire…
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 12, 2018 at 12:00 pm
I remember commenting on this poem before, which you answered, but I don’t see it? WP has been dumping stuff in the spam folders again?
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 12, 2018 at 4:32 pm
Thank you, Truedessa. You are right on all counts.
LikeLike
January 12, 2018 at 4:59 pm
LOL! Goddess of Hell Fire~ Yeah, I pretend to sleep at 4am and he will get up and tend the fire but I think this is what women through the centuries did. LOL!
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 12, 2018 at 5:01 pm
Possibily….but i posted it again for OLN as people that I wanted to read this didn’t before. A blitzkreeg of “Olsen’s Pond”. Thank you, Petru.
LikeLike
January 12, 2018 at 5:03 pm
Very well written.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 12, 2018 at 5:08 pm
Thanks, Petru. I keep reading this over and over and over. The trauma never leaves.
LikeLike
January 12, 2018 at 5:17 pm
It never will. One just learn to be with it without being overwhelmed by it so very much. I’ve no advice Jane. In this writing however I think you may have found a measure of healing. Be well. Please.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 12, 2018 at 5:23 pm
You’re right. It’s time and distance and the fading of brain cells that makes it…..well, writing…it certainly gives topic for writing. Healing comes but slowing…if ever. Thanks, sweetie. We all have these to carry through life.
LikeLike
January 12, 2018 at 5:25 pm
We do. Again – be as well as can be.
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 13, 2018 at 12:19 am
What a terrible tragedy…I will be haunted for years of that scene, filled with what ifs….
LikeLike
January 13, 2018 at 3:22 am
What ifs seem to be the stuffings of most lives. Thank you, Grace for reading and your comment.
LikeLike
January 13, 2018 at 1:13 pm
Hello my friend. A powerful share here.
LikeLike
January 13, 2018 at 2:54 pm
Hi Ayala! Thank you for reading and your comment. Good to read you!
LikeLike