Anne Whitehouse

Meditation at North Beach Park, Burlington

Thickly wooded Juniper Island
rises from the lake
within swimming distance from shore.
The sloping peaks of the Adirondacks,
misty blue and far off in the distance,
belong to heaven and not to earth.
 
From the beach I watch a storm 
gather from the mountains, 
then sweep over the lake. 
Whitecaps form on the surface.
It is like the sea, 
and it is not like the sea.
 
Rain falls in large drops
propelled by a breeze,
and a canopy on aluminum poles 
topples on the beach, 
somersaulting erratically.
 
Under a shelter,
students and faculty gather
at an impromptu party
celebrating recent graduates.
I eat strawberry-rhubarb pie
and think of the mountains, eons old.
When they were formed,
fault lines pushed yellow dolostone
above the dark shale,
the older stone above the younger.
 
Now I am older,
I want to impart history.
Shivering children in wet bathing suits
wrap themselves in towels.
Sometimes the young listen politely
and sometimes impatiently, 
propelled towards lives
that haven’t happened yet.
 
I feel my hold on life growing tenuous,
like those islands farther off--
the Four Brothers—like steppingstones
appearing to float in the blue 
without moving at all.



Steady

There are ways of being steady--
unmoving, like a rock,
or in an even motion,
like metronome or clock.
 
Practicing balance, like a tree 
rooted and branching.
With intention, I found my place
and held it, trembling.
 
Another form of steadiness
is simply not to fall.
Be ready to flee or stay.
Change happens to us all.

The publication of “After the Apocalypse” in Issue 3 was Anne Whitehouse’s first appearance in Young Ravens Literary Review. She is pleased to have her poems published in Issue 19. She is the author of six poetry collections and six poetry chapbooks, mostly recently Being Ruth Asawa (Ethel Zine and Micro Press, 2023), as well as a novel, Fall Love. Her poem, “Lady Bird,” won the Nathan Perry DAR Chapter's 2023 "Honor American History" poetry contest and the National Federation of State Poetry Society’s Power of Women Award.