The Dry Stone Waller Walling in the Small Town Cemetary
In rising walls I spy a giant coffin
for a late, open casket wake where god
weeps over "wife Jane taken from child"
though, in old maples' roots, nourished by de-
composing caskets' remains, I too spy
"newlyweds who died in honeymoon fire"
re-incarnating into leaves with such view
of Lake Winnipesaukee that they, too,
possibly divine God's grand design in
these brief lives of living on so much light,
and so I celebrate the fallen leaves returning,
in spring, as iris that--peering over
the wall--turn this coffin into a cradle
ever so gently rocking my joy awake.
*First appeared in Poetry East Magazine, Fall, 2007 and in The 2008 Poets'
Guide to New Hampshire
STONE BY STONE, POEMS ABOUT THE ART OF DRYSTONE WALLING
Anyone who has ever been lost in the vast woods of northern New England knows what a blessing it is to happen upon a stone wall, that vestige of work done by human hands a couple of centuries ago. To follow those stones means you'll come out somewhere, that wall in the woods your compass to home.
In this wonderful collection of poems, Dennis Camire leads us, Stone by Stone, from the elemental to the ethereal, from chipmunks to transubstantiation. He is a sure-handed Virgil, as deft with syllables and sounds as the wall builders with stones, on this imaginative journey from the dark woods of our times to the warmth and humor of his hearth.
--Bruce Guernsey, Editor, The Spoon River Poetry Review--
Dennis Camire has created a book of wonders and transformations, making from stones and the work of stone wallers his own marvelous poems. Stone by Stone is nothing less than a beatific vision of work, where maker and material are in harmony, and craft grows out of that fine tuning. Part of the wonder is the way these poems cover such a range of time and knowledge, from the scientific to the mystical, from the long millennia during which stones solidify, break down, disperse, and re-emerge, to the present moment a waller holds one stone in hand and sets it in place. These poems embody mystery, rock-solid and profound. The music they make is sure, and like a fine stone wall these poems reward every moment we spend musing in their presence.
---Betsy Sholl, Maine State Poet Laureate, author of "Rough Cradle," Alice James Books--
To purchase a copy of the chapbook, log-on to www.finishinglinepress.com and
Click “new releases.”
Dennis Camire's poems have appeared in Poerty East Magazine, Spoon River Poetry Review, The Mid-American Review and The 2008 and 2010 Poets' Guide to New Hampshire. Currently he is a bartender, a part-time adjunct instructor at YorkCounty Community College, and the executive director of Maine Poetry Central which curates the Portland Poet Laureate Project and the Minute with the Muse video series which was recently awarded a Maine Humanities Grant. His last chapbook, "Unidentified Flying Odes," was published by Moon Pie Press. To contact him for readings and anything related to literature, email him at bioluminescing@yahoo.com
