Bio: Robert Demaree is the author of three collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers, published April 2007 by Beech River Books. His second book-length collection, Mile Markers, will be published later in 2009. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H., Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. He has had approximately 400 poems published or accepted by 100 periodicals.

Poetry by Robert Demaree

Passing Over

Clear morning, sixty degrees,

Just before Labor Day,

Soft breeze off the pond, quiet,

Except for kids splashing

A few docks down—

I take them to be Philip’s age.

A good day to put a coat of stain

On the side of the cottage

That faces the water

And bears the anger of winters

We have not seen.

I’ve done this before,

Written of it before, more than once.

I think of Cicero, texts I used to teach,

How he would claim

To pass over certain facts,

Then recount them in detail.

What I am remembering, of course,

That first time, that first coat of stain,

More then fifty years ago now,

The house new,

Fresh yellow pine drinking in the oils,

My father, embarrassed by surgery,

Offering suggestions from the Adirondack chair.

How many coats since then,

How much scraping, sanding,

How much time wasted

Not walking under ladders?

And who will apply the next coat?

Ten years, at the outside.

Philip will be in college then.

I will sit in the Adirondack chair,

Offer suggestions

And tell him about today.