Muddy Pond / Kathy Kremins

Three Poems for Muddy Pond Wilderness Preserve and Northeast Wilderness Trust
by Kathy Kremins

Apr, 2021

Hum a Home

Much is made of late winter
light how the angle
of March sun darkens the sky
into azure blue
so diving into the pine
forest splashes solitude
reflected off Muddy Pond.
On next visit, Spring 
will perform Her symphony
opening sonata accompanied 
by toads, frogs, insects
salamanders in vernal
pools, then andante
gentle emergence
wildflowers, painted turtles.

But for today, long shadows
of winter are my companions.
The sound of my boots
on fallen needles, pine cones, rocks
mud, oak leaves under stubborn snow.
The pond glimmer stops me
frozen with stillness, then
the beating of my heart
rhythm of my breath.
When you hear the quiet
don’t fill it with words
or noise. Let the geese call
and the wind answer.
Gather the notes inside where
silent nature hums a home.

Pine Barrens Plainsong

 Will they know us, Muddy Pond?
Will the sky see our dance?
Pale reddish pine needles
nestle in late winter hardness
like land I walked as a child
in Jersey Pine Barrens fragrance.

Will I know you, Muddy Pond?
Will the wind taste the same?
Stretched across stolen land
ancestor voices vibrate, Lenape south
Wampanoag north, across land
burdened with history, gather, honor

sacred space swirls with a breathing
across miles, boundary-less, gentian reaches
pulls me to pitch pine and oak
coastal plain pond, reclaim the sweetness.
Will you know me, Muddy Pond?
Will the earth hear this hymn?

Night Pools

Why am I always so excited with anticipation of that first time:
first look, lingering, and the first touch,
drawing nearer to the moisture and
the sound of my own breath? 

Seeing and listening with attention has taken me lifetimes, too long.
But you lead me through the woods deliberately,
quietly guiding me deeper into the dark,
closer to the peepers and tree frogs,
vernal pool after vernal pool. 

Why do I seem to be stuck or lost, hesitating before entering the woods?
No light, no compass, no desire: a pattern of repetitive gestures,
a dullness of intuition, a blundering and
fumbling of a creative ache…

I hear you exhale and whisper what might be my name as you reach into the net.
The spotted salamander struggles, but only momentarily and settles 
with a firm grip onto your thumb. I open my hands to you and 
a shiver ripples through me. I want that first moment
over and over again, knowing what I know now,
how to touch more lightly, slowly, sighing 
at your mysterious, magnificent form,
holding you, tenderly, 
gently, in awe.

Kathy Kremins is a retired public school teacher and coach, adjunct professor, poet, and author. Most recently, her poem "The Curve of Things" was part of ARTS By The People's Moving Words project for 2020. Her poems have appeared in The Night Heron Barks, The Paterson Literary Review, and other publications. She is the author of The Ethics of Reading: The Broken Beauties of Toni Morrison, Arundhati Roy, and Nawal el Sadaawi and essay contributor to Too Smart to be Sentimental: Contemporary Irish American Women Writers.

Northeast Wilderness Trust (newildernesstrust.org) is a non-profit land trust, founded in 2002 to fill the vacant niche of wilderness protection in the Northeast. Their mission is to conserve forever-wild landscapes for nature and people. To date, they have protected more than 41,000 forever-wild acres across New England and New York.