Today Jill and I saw a dear friend in Cherryfield as per my poem below. Our friend was a major antique dealer who, like me, was in love with Kennebunkport the same time I was way, way back in time. He spent much time in France importing European antiques to the U.S. He just loved meeting our Great Dane, Montague, whom he had seen as a puppy two years ago.
Victorian mansions and a stream strewn with boulders,
Antiquarian shadows from another world so far away and yet so near,
Of wild asters, fragrant grasses, goldenrod , and sweet fern,
Smells distilled by a warm sun smiling in a cerulean sky,
Combining heavenly scents of patchouli, turmeric, thyme,
Beyond exotic incense and peculiar to Appalachian Maine—
Bringing a lassitude and contentment that heaven is here now,
Enfolding all of us in unspeakable love and tenderness of a gentle presence
That this is not the dream it seems to be, but our nurturing sense of Soul,
That truly is our “home and heavenly rest” and eternally joyous place.
Peter Stilton Gouldsboro Maine 9/26/2019
