Tag: New England

ENDLESS PERSPECTIVES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Rarely do you stand at the summit. It’s a lesson of life.

Even on the trail, the climax awaits, somewhere overhead.

We need something to look up to, from infancy on.

And then there are clouds – or the surrounding range.

Or the streams, threading together, below.

Mountain 1~*~

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AN ASIDE ON THE WALKING TOUR

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Selecting the examples of historic architectural styles that are running in the Red Barn’s Strolling Dover series on Wednesdays, I have to admit one thing.

Often, more impressive houses can be found in some of the neighboring cities and towns, meaning those a bit closer to the ocean.

Unlike more prosperous settlements around nearby Atlantic harbors – Portsmouth, New Hampshire; York, Maine; and Newburyport, Massachusetts, all spring to mind – Dover was essentially a blue-collar mill town. Or, as the ditty went,

Portsmouth by the sea;
Dover, by the smell

referring to the tanneries needed to keep the mills supplied with leather belts that conveyed power from the falling water to the looms and related machinery above.

Rich merchants and sea captains didn’t retire here, and even though we were a seaport, we were a dozen or so miles from the open ocean downstream. As a result, our housing was more modest, less refined than some of the magnificent specimens found clustered overlooking the prime wharves and customs houses of our tonier neighbors.

That doesn’t take away from my pleasure of strolling through Dover or of sharing details observed along the way. Just want to put it all in perspective.

FORGET ZEUS AND HERA, FOR NOW

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The Olympic Peninsula is an extraordinary extreme in continental United States. It juts out in the far upper left-hand corner, surrounded on three sides by ocean and inlets and featuring a jagged mountain range in its center. Much of it is lush and tangled, and there is relatively little human habitation.

It could be a land of the gods, as its very name suggests. Or as the Native Americans, with their stories still intact, will relate. Forget Zeus and Hera, then – this is a panoply arising from American roots and its westward focus.

Come along into the rainforest and then camp just in from the beach. As I did, collecting these poems.

Olympus 1~*~

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