August 9: Chimney Farm

Chimney Farm, on the shores of Damariscotta Lake in Nobleboro, Maine, was the home of writers Henry Beston and Elizabeth Coatsworth. They are both buried there in a small cemetery, as well as their daughter, poet Kate Barnes, who was Maine's first Poet Laureate (and a dear friend of mine). The Damariscotta Lake Watershed Association, which has conserved much of the farm property, held a poetry reading there today in which I was invited to participate. On this beautiful sunny summer afternoon, four of us poets who had known Kate well read her poems and pieces by both her parents while standing amid their gravesites.

 

A perfect day

to read poems over your grave,

spells to bring you back.

 

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