New Hampshire Suite

I.

We walked, stealthily, along

The Bridle path –passing

Neat rows of maples, American beeches,

Arms of red spruces; their bodies, thick

With leaves, spines swollen

With blooms of hockweed and iris –

Holding hands, listening carefully

To sounds of water crashing

Onto boulders sleeved with moss.

We tiptoed through stretches of the trail

Made dense with wild blueberries, observed

Purple columbines, rings of fresh poppies, bunches

Of white hydrangeas –so serene, all around,  

That we felt, all of a sudden, like intruders

In Nature’s order of being.