H.A. Maxson
Our March poet, H.A. Maxson, whose poems have been nominated many times for Pushcart Prizes, is the author of 15 books: four collections of poetry, Turning the Wood, Walker in the Storm, The Curley Poems and Hook; a book-length poem, The Walking Tour: Alexander Wilson in America; a novel in free verse, Brother Wolf; a novel, The Younger; seven works of historical fiction for young readers, and a critical study, On the Sonnets of Robert Frost.
An adjunct professor of English at Wesley College in Dover, Delaware, he and his wife, Maureen Maxson, a nurse and photographer, live in Milford, Delaware, where they are organic gardeners.
Here are three poems to introduce you to his fine work. The first two are from Walker in the Storm (St. Louis: Singing Wind Press, 1980), and the third, “Krishna’s mother,” is a new one, published here for the first time.
–Irene Willis
Poetry Editor
Winter Apples
This afternoon you brought home apples,
a bushel from a friend’s orchard, a bargain
he insisted you steal at cost. And you say,
now we are prepared for the worst cold.
Even if it snows for weeks you have a dozen
recipes and the spices to disguise them.
So I lay them out on old, clean boards
like all the answers, their sides not touching
in the coldest corner of the house.
The room is filled with them. And later
I smell apples everywhere. On your skin,
on the warm blankets you huddle under.
Tomorrow, when you leave, you will take
their fragrance with you, and bring it back
again. One by one you will take them
like your friend’s advice, and make them last
almost through the winter. You will forget
those recipes you lied about and say
we needed them.
Already I believe that.
from Walker in the Storm. K.M. Gentile Publishing, Singing Wind Press.
1980.
March 21: Dancing with My Small Daughter
–for Carrie
Today we dance on the winter edge of spring
to something once popular on the radio.
I hold you in one bent arm while you grin
your first teeth like two tiny stalactites.
I have invented a dance, a kind of waltz,
we do to a song I only half remember.
It is the only step we both know. But winter
is all you knew of seasons, until today.
I turn, rattling dishes, spilling books, keepsakes
and a vase four times my age. And you follow.
Today we dance on the winter edge of spring
and I remember all I have not learned
to teach you. So we turn again and faster
and I invent steps and words to finish the song.
from Walker in the Storm. K.M. Gentile Publishing, Singing Wind Press,
1980.
Krishna’s mother
peered
into the babygod’s mouth
and beheld the universe –
for just a moment,
an entire moment,
witnessed the universe
like a raisin in the babygod’s mouth.