Mary Brancaccio reciting a poem at Hemlock Falls.
Mary Brancaccio Leads First SMC Poetry Hike
Mary Brancaccio, South Orange poet and teacher, led 17 people on the SMC’s first poetry hike from Tulip Springs to and over Hemlock Falls on Sunday, Oct. 27th. At six locations she recited poems. Below is the original poem Mary read about her experience in South Mountain Reservation composed for the SMC’s 25th Anniversary Gala the night before and two other of her poems. The other poems read at the hike are cited below. More information about Mary and her works can be found at https://www.ghostgirlpoet.com/.
Living Deliberately
Whose woods these are in early morning
is anyone’s guess. I step through night work of
spiders, through a glen of wet ferns, to the cooling
creek bed. Morning sun slants through maples
as cars hum over a small bridge in the S curves
and a red-tailed hawk perches on a tall oak,
oblivious to a blue jay’s warning call.
The warblers are silent, even the wind is
pausing a beat, as the tree roots cling
to earth with a white-knuckled grip.
So much like the veins of my hand
announcing my age with every heartbeat.
But the worries I carried with me
are slipping off, as if I were a pine
shaking off the last of the night’s rain.
Sunlight drifts like fairy dust in this wood
where everything is holding its breath
as if waking is a fearsome act, as if
exhaling lets loose the day, and I too
hold stillness within me, not out of fear
but wonder. As I leave the glen, a heavy
slide and thump rattles the peace —
though turning back, I see nothing
but a swaying bough and dense brush.
As I wander uphill, crossing deer paths,
I follow a cardinal’s shrill chirps
and the distant song of a wood-pewee.
Back at the parking lot, a flock of grackles
argues aimlessly, flitting between branches
at the meadow’s edge. As I follow the road home,
I pass a caution sign: bear sighting.
I smile, hoping I wasn’t the cause of that
mad dash up a tree, first thing in the morning.
Mary Brancaccio
October 21, 2024
(c) Copyright 2024 by Mary Brancaccio. All rights reserved.
South Mountain Reservation, November
for Michaelyn
We are now orphans
but we stride through copper leaf litter
tilting our ears toward birdsong.
Strange joy: we kick our feet
through fallen leaves, a sound
like shushing rain.
Your ears have closed themselves
to calls of migrating geese.
Only a crow’s caw breaks through.
I don’t mourn what is lost.
When we can relish moments like this,
isn’t that enough?
A thousand grackles chatter
in the boughs of bare trees.
For you. I will listen for you.
— Mary Brancaccio
March 20, 2024
(c) Copyright 2024 by Mary Brancaccio. All rights reserved.
Reverie, For Elizabeth Davidson
by Mary Brancaccio
Let us follow memory’s path, ringed
by wild birdsong. So many tweets, trills
and caws recorded by your elder aunt
on her kitchen lintel so she might trace
a finger across a name
golden crowned kinglet
and recall sudden dart of wing
see-see-see of its melody.
After her last morning walk she added
a ninety-ninth to her watcher’s list.
This landscape is a botanist’s library
as if each tree, mushroom, and weed bristles
with knowledge carved in ancient cuneiform
few can read. On the gray-green lichen
an entire universe teems with algae, fungi
even virus — an involution of lives drawn
to symbiosis. They roll and curl
as if they grasp that survival
entails cohabitation, not
separation. What a lesson.
Another morning, I trace your steps
at the edge of the west field.
Wind through quaking aspens susurrates
as it ushers in a downeast storm.
Once, while wandering beneath oaks
and shimmering maples, you crossed
this meadow swimming in reverie.
For a moment you were one with the wild,
your edges blurred. What had been rift
vanished. You were afraid, as if a great spirit
had overtaken you and left you reeling.
It spoke in a voice that needs no tongue:
blessed be she who breathes in the wilderness.
From Writing the Land: Maine, edited by Lis McLoughlin, PhD, NatureCulture, LLC, 2022.
(c) Copyright 2022 by Mary Brancaccio. All rights reserved.
Other Poems Presented on the Hike:
you must be present by Jose Olivarez
From You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, Edited and introduced by Ada Limon, Milkweed Editions and the Library of Congress, 2024.by Jose Olivarez
* * *
Lullaby for the Grieving at the Sipsey River by Ashley M. Jones
From You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, Edited and introduced by Ada Limon, Milkweed Editions and the Library of Congress, 2024.
* * *
Liturgy of Becoming an Erratic by Michael Garrigan
From River, Amen by Michael Garrigan, Wayfarer Books, 2023.
* * *
Sanctuary by Ada Limon
From The Hurting Kind by Ada Limon, Milkweed Editions, 2022.
* * *
Night Pools by Kathy Kremins
From The Curve of Things by Kathy Kremins, CavanKerry Press, 2024.
* * *