1. A beginning, a middle, and an end.

The Reaper says, “Just as it is hard to get the whole story, it is hard to allow a story to tell itself. Poets become enamored of a segment, an anecdote, and are content with nothing more. When this occurs, like the detached tail of a lizard, the story just wriggles and dies.”

So rather than tell you the Merrimack River is still unfrozen, I should let you know this river begins at the confluence of the Pemigewasset (flowing from the White Mountains) and the Winnipesaukee (flowing from the lake of the same name) in Franklin, New Hampshire. It flows southward through Concord and Manchester (the ancient home of the Pennacook Indians), past the Budweiser plant in Merrimack (home of the Clydesdales), through the once-great mill cities of Lowell and Lawrence (and setting for my MA thesis), and then past Amesbury (home) and Newburyport (stomping grounds) out to the vast Atlantic Ocean. Now I’m sure it’s frozen somewhere up north. But not here. Not today.

But before this post wriggles and dies, return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear! From out of the past come the thundering hoof-beats of the great horse Silver! (oh, wrong intro) Anyways, quatrains 7 & 8 of “Jules Chauvin, Ferryman in Exile”

“Who’s there?” he asks the night. Another knock.
“The ferry doesn’t run past autumn. Off!”
Another knock, but this time louder than
the god of winter’s awful cataclysm,

or that’s what Calvin mutters to himself
rising to lift the frozen dead bolt lock.
“Who goes there on this friendless night,” he shouts
into the limits. “Me, you wild Canuck!”