POEM: On arriving at the ‘banks of another spring’

June 9, 2026

By Patricia Ranzoni

IN A MAINE VALLEY ANY JUNE

Trout's what a good man brings his good wife

come spring. Alders showing when, sprouting mice ears

along each branch, tight ice finally gone. Fishing,

he catches his dear's doubting face the itinerant poet

called wonderful wondering if she remembers he's

told her too, thinking how many winters they've

weathered together to come again to the banks of another

spring. She's reviewing the same thing on her knees

in renewing green, knifing damp dirt for taproots

to slice whole dandelion knots for her colander pile

when he, whistling, comes with them gutted and laced

on a whittled shoot. She fires the spider cast-iron hot

with sizzling butter, then when the lemon and melon spots

have crusted brown with flavored flour and those tail M's

curled crisp, she swirls that mess of greens to wilt

in that taste until those brookies are cooked through

but not too. Spread whole, soft bones and all,

onto palms of her best oat, they bite into the grounds

they haven't left to live instead some other place

doing their damnedest to overpower the sorrow bread

all this way from Waco and Oklahoma City.

—Ranzoni was Bucksport’s poet laureate from 2014 to 2025.

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