I am here today, but i may not be tomorrow - a hitchhiker i picked up somewhere between Bennington and Marlboro Vermont*


The library at Packer's Corners had
the smell of damp and old
as a lush august climbed the faded
wide wooden planks outside
and we schemed our
nightly dinner theatre performances.
The gang congregated disorderly
across the rocky garden before the (stage) barn,
plates and carafes of wine, rapt in the play.
Marti, a painter with knobby hands, salt and pepper hair,
the face of a sage and a speech impediment;
Veranda must have been a muse with her sharp
bohemian features and sleek black bob,
smelling of rosemary and musky Parisian perfume;
Oona, so young and stormy crashed about
those mountains in moods as protean
as Vermont weather and jeans
that were more holes than fabric;
Cootie, in his black goatee and the scent of
cooking oils under his mottled and freckled skin
would squint through the bugs and heat wave haze
to Marco on the pitcher's mound
scuffing his mortorcycle boots into the
sandy tan soil riddled with stones and
laughing with the reckless abandon that
waters the eyes with antifreeze for the soul