'Into the moonlit woods'
“We climb into the cellar hole
of the old Bailey place
that caught fire in the middle
of the night, the seven children
who raced into the moonlit woods
in weightless clothes gowns and bedclothes’’
— From “Into the Forest,’’ by Anna Birch (1970), reflecting her experiences as a child in Hollis, N.H.
The tie-loving ghost
“Last night my color-blind chain-smoking father
who has been dead for fourteen years
stepped up out of a basement tie shop
downtown and did not recognize me.’’
— From “My Father’s Neckties,’’ by Maxine Kumin (1925-2014), a U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winner and a Warner, N.H., horse farmer.