Coming of Age in Blue Hill, Maine

For Andrew, on his graduation from Liberty School,
Blue Hill, Maine
June 16, 2006


After two years of Liberty,
managed well,
amid firefly fields
and hikes up Blue Hill Mountain,
bonfires on granite
and woodstove warmings,
with sea smoke in winter
and a springtime of emails from Africa
from the young man who returned
in place of the boy who left
this Blue Hill shore,

After two years of hammock snoozing
with lilacs and lupines framing granite steps
and perfuming front porch lunches
while lobstermen circled traps
and seagulls laughed overhead,

After two years piled high
with sea shells, sea glass, sand dollars,
stones smoothed by saltwater,
mussels picked from the sea and steamed with garlic,

After so many trips over Falls Bridge currents
at high tide, low tide, mid-tide,
with moonlit diamonds on rapids,

In the midst of so much time passing,
so much beauty thrilling, so much change happening,
I somehow missed the moment when the boy became a man.
For one day, I looked, and there he was,
tall and full of knowing what he wanted,
and I was proud and full of wonder at all he’d accomplished.