The University of Texas at Austin

Law in Popular Culture collection

The Legal Studies Forum
Volume 30, Number 1/2 (2006)
reprinted by permission Legal Studies Forum

Lawyers & Poets
A World Inhabited

LILLIAN BAKER KENNEDY
_______________________

Like a Season

In spring, the land is littered,       
as if winter had been, perhaps,
only the wash of a large wave,
now receded, now leaving
only our autumnal remains.

A walk past the brackish waters
at the edges of the river,
itself, a passion of movement.
A gull shriek, high,
the peace punctured,
and I begin to wonder—

is even inland a harbor
under a great swell of ocean,
and is love, like a season,
only as long as a wave?

[607]

 
Morning Glory in Maine

Along the rocky coast,
each ledge belongs
to those who come.
Sweet slim tendrils
linger on the granite,
now gray as one who ages
in the long life of loving
delicate throated blushes.

A passing visitor stumbles,
and finds, breath drawn,
shells left after supper
entwined amidst her tresses.

Let me be a patient traveler
through summer hushed under fog.
I might find a wilder comfort
though my lips are traced with salt.

[608]


Lillian Baker Kennedy is the author of two collections of poetry, Tomorrow After Night (Bay River Press, 2003) and Notions (Pudding House Publications, 2004). She practices law and lives in an old Cape Cod house bordered by wild roses in Auburn, Maine.
"Like a Season" was first published in Cider Press Review; "Morning Glory" first appeared in Leavings (Bay River Press, 2005)(a collection of poems by Elizabeth Hobbs, Patricia Smith Ranzoni, Elizabeth Moser and Lillian Baker Kennedy).