The Summer People

ON OUR New England coast was once
A village white and neat
With Greek Revival houses,
Sailboats, a fishing fleet,

Two churches and two liquor stores,
An Inn, a Gourmet Shoppe,
A library, a pharmacy.
Trains passed but did not stop.

Gold Street was rich in neon,
Main Street in rustling trees
Untouched as yet by hurricanes
And the Dutch elm disease.

On Main the summer people
Took deep-rooted ease —
A leaf turned red, to town they’d head.
On Gold lived the Portuguese

Whose forebears had manned whalers.;
Two years from the Azores
Saw you with ten gold dollars
Upon these fabled shores.

Feet still pace the whaler’s deck
At the Caustic (Me.) Museum.
A small stuffed whale hangs overhead
As in the head a dream.

Slowly the fleet was shrinking.
The good-sized fish were few.
Town meetings closed and opened
With the question what to do.

Each year when manufacturers
Of chemicals and glues
Bid to pollute the harbor
It took longer to refuse.

Said Manuel the grocer,
“Vote for that factory,
And the summer people’s houses
Will be up for sale, you’ll see.

Our wives take in their laundry.
Our kids, they cut the grass
And baby-sit. The benefit
Comes home to all of us.”

Someone else said, “Next winter
You’ll miss that Chemical Plant.”
Andrew breathed in Nora’s ear: “Go, grasshopper! Go, ant!”

These two were summer neighbors.
They loved without desire.
Both, now over forty,
Had elsewhere played with fire.

Of all the summer people
Who dwelt in pigeonholes,
Old Navy or Young Married,
The Bad Sports, the Good Souls,

These were the Amusing,
The Unconventional ones—
Plus Andrew’s Jane (she used a cane
And shook it at his puns)

And Nora’s mother Margaret
With her dawn-colored hair,
Her novels laid in Europe
That she wrote in a garden chair.

“Where’s Andrew?” Margaret queried
As Nora entered the room.
“Didn’t he want to come over?
It seems to be my doom

To spend long lonely evenings.
Don’t we know anyone?”
“Dozens of people, Mother.”
“But none of them are fun!

The summer already seems endless
And it’s only the first of July.
My eyes are too weak for reading
And I am too strong to cry.

I wish I weren’t a widow,
I wish you weren’t divorced —
Oh, by the way, I heard today
About a man named Frost

Who’s bought the Baptist church
And means to do it over.”
“Mother, he sounds like just the type
I don’t need for a lover.”

Andrew at the piano
Let the ice in his nightcap melt.
Mendelssohn’s augmentations
Were very deeply felt.

Jane cleaned her paintbrushes
With fingers rheumatic and slow.
Their son came back from the movies,
She called a vague hello

But he’d bounded upstairs already,
Jarring three petals loose
From today’s bunch of roses
Not dry yet — pink, cream, puce.

A YOUNG man spoke to Margaret
At a party: “Don’t be bored.
I’ve read your books, I like your looks”
Then vanished in the horde.

Her hostess said when questioned,
“Why, that’s Interesting Jack Frost.
He’s fixing up that eyesore
With no regard for cost.

Don’t ask me where he comes from
Or why he settled here.
He’s certainly attractive,
To judge by the veneer.”

One thing led to another,
And long before summer’s end
Margaret, Nora, Andrew, Jane
Had found them a new friend.

JACK FROST was years older
Than his twenty-year-old face.
He loved four-hand piano
And gladly took the bass,

Loved also bridge but did not play
So well as to offend,
Loved to gossip, loved croquet,
His money loved to spend

On food and drink and flowers,
Loved entertaining most.
The happy few who’d been there knew
Him as a famous host.

The church was now a folly
Cloud-white and palest blue —
Lanterns, stained glass, mirrors,
Polar-bear rugs, bamboo,

Armchairs of gleaming buffalo-horn,
The titter of wind chimes,
A white cat, a blue cushion
Stitched with the cat’s name, Grimes.

“Proud Grimes, proud loyal kitty,”
Jack said, “I love you best.”
Two golden eyes were trimmed to slits,
Gorgeously unimpressed.

Ken the Japanese “houseboy”
(Though silver-haired and frail)
Served many a curious hot hors d’oeuvre
And icy cold cocktail.

The new friends, that first evening,
Sat on till half past two.
“This man,” said Andrew on the street,
“Is too good to be true.

One views with faint misgivings
The bounty of the young.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Nora
Or the Cointreau on her tongue.

“Well, I think he’s enchanting,”
Said Margaret, “and what’s more
In the long run he’ll find, for fun,
No one to match us four,”

October came too quickly,
The leaves turned red and sere,
Time for the summer people
To pack up and call it a year.

In the mind’s mouth summers later
Ken’s farewell banquet melts.
Where would Jack spend the winter?
Why, here of course — where else?

“Stay here all winter? Really,
The things some people do!”
“Whither thou goest, Margaret,
To thee I will be true.”

“Come see us in the city.”
“My lovely Nora, no.
Too full of dull, dull people
And dirty, dirty snow.”

“Come see us in Barbados.”
“Forgive me, dearest Jane.
I’ve planned a Northern winter.”
So they cajoled in vain.

The next days Jack lay drowsing,
Grimes in the bend of his knees.
He woke one dusk to eat a rusk
And smile at the bare trees.

THE FIRST huge flakes descended
Hexagonal, unique.
The panes put forth white leafage.
The harbor froze in a week.

The shrieking children skated
Upon its harsh white jewel,
Whose parents stayed indoors and paid
Outrageous bills for fuel.

Great lengths of gnarled crystal
Glittered from porch and eave.
It was, in short, a winter
You had to see to believe.

Whole nights, a tower window
Rained color on the storm.
“Jack’s sure artistic,” Manuel said,
“But how does he keep warm?”

Ken climbed the stair one March dusk.
“Dear Jack-san, now am ord,
Dream of my Kyushu virrage
Where nobody catch cord.”

“Together, Ken, we’ll go there,
But for the moment stay.
What would I do without you?”
Ken bowed and turned away.

Jack stood up. The cat scuttled
Discreetly out of sight.
Jack’s eyes were wet. Pride and regret
Burned in his heart all night.

A mild sun rose next morning.
The roofs began to steam
Where snow had melted. Winter
Was ending like a dream.

ALERTED and elated
The summer friends came back.
Their exile had been tiresome,
Each now confessed to Jack.

His garden made them welcome;
Ken had spent May on his knees
Among the plots. From Chinese pots
On the church porch small trees

Rose thick with purple blossoms
Pendulous as Turks.
Said Andrew gravely, “I have seen
The fuchsia, and it works.”

That summer was the model
For several in a row —
High-water marks of humor
And humankindness, no

Discord at cards, at picnics,
Charades or musicales.
Their faces bright with pleasure might
Not have displeased Frans Hals.

Jane, speaking of pictures,
Had started one of Grimes
Drugged on Jack’s lap. Those sessions
Made for the merriest times.

Margaret brought out her gripping
Stories of love and war,
Peking and Nice. They held their peace
Who’d heard them told before.

Nora, one August afternoon,
Burst in with currant fool
Enough for the whole village.
Its last sweet molecule

Eaten, they blushed like truants.
“Shame on us every one,”
Jane sighed, “we’ve got no fiber.”
And Margaret: “Oh, the fun!

Let’s stay for Christmas. Andrew,
You can play Santa Claus!”
Jack gave a cry. Into his thigh
The cat had dug its claws.

JANE’S CANVAS, scarred and peeling,
Turned up at the village fair
The other day. I’m sad to say
It found a customer.

The Chemical Plant director
Bought it for his wife
To overpaint with symbols
Flat as her palette knife.

They’re a perfectly nice couple
So long as you steer clear
Of art and politics and such —
But to resume. That year

Jack’s friends did stay for Christmas,
The next year into Lent,
A third year stayed all winter
To their own astonishment.

Logs burned, the sparks flew upward.
The whiteness when they woke
Struck them as of a genius
Positively baroque,

Invention’s breast and plumage,
Flights of the midnight Swan . . .
The facts are in Margaret’s journal
To be published when she’s gone.

I should perhaps have trusted
To dry-eyed prose like hers.
The meter grows misleading,
Given my characters.

For figures in a ballad
Lend themselves to acts
Passionate and simple.
A bride weeps. A tree cracks.

A young king, an old outlaw
Whose temperament inclines
To strife where breakers thunder
Bleeds between the lines.

But I have no such hero,
No fearful deeds—unless
We count their quiet performance
By Time or Tenderness.

These two are the past masters
Of rime, tone, overtone.
They write upon our faces
Until the pen strikes bone.

Time passes softly, scarcely
Felt by me or you.
And then, at an odd moment,
Tenderness passes, too.

THAT JANUARY midday
Jack’s head fell to his knee.
Margaret stopped in mid-sentence —
Whatever could it be?

“He’s sound asleep,” said Nora.
“So clever of him. If
Only I were! Your stories
Bore everybody stiff.”

“What can she mean,” said Margaret,
“Speaking to me like that?”
“I mean you’re gaga, Mother.”
“And you, my child, are fat.”

Jack murmured in his slumber,
“I didn’t sleep a wink
All during last night’s blizzard.
Where am I? Where’s my drink?”

His eyes flew wide. “I’m sorry,
I’m sick, I have to go.”
He took his coat and tottered
Out into windless snow.

The dogwood at the corner,
Unbending in a burst
Of diamond levity, let drop:
Old friend, think! First things first,

Not June in January —
“Be still!” cried Jack, and bit
His stupid tongue. A snowflake stung
Silence back into it.

Ken helped him up the tower stair,
“Rie down, Jack-san, now rest.”
He fell among white blankets,
Grimes heavy on his chest.

Margaret went round next morning
And rang. No one replied.
She found Ken sleeping on the stair,
A wineglass at his side.

A white blur sped to meet her —
Was it that ghastly cat?
Grimes spat, crouched, sprang and sank a fang
Into her, just like that!

She screamed. A stern young doctor,
Summoned out of the void,
Dressed her wound, then telephoned
To have the cat destroyed.

Jack flew to the Police Chief,
Called the SPCA,
Despairing thought that Margaret
Herself might save the day.

She kept him standing, coldly
Displayed her bandaged calf.
He spoiled it all by failing
To check a thoughtless laugh.

Two men with gloves were waiting.
They caught Grimes in a sack.
Two good whiffs of ether
And his gold eyes shut on Jack.

That same night, Grimes in ermine
And coronet of ice
Called him by name, cried vengeance,
Twitching his long tail twice.

Jack woke in pitch dark, burning,
Freezing, leapt dry-lipped
From bed, threw clothes on, neither
Packed nor reflected, slipped

Money between pages
Of Ken’s dog-eared almanac,
Then on the sleeping village
Forever turned his back.

HE MUST have let a month go by
Before he sent them all
Postcards of some Higher Thing —
The Jungfrau, white and tall.

“Well, that answers our question,”
Said Margaret looking grim.
They dealt with Jack from then on
By never mentioning him.

LANGUID as convalescents,
Dreading the color green,
They braced themselves for summer’s
Inexorable routine.

Andrew at the piano,
Six highballs gone or more,
Played Brahms, his “venerable beads”
Fixed on the flickering score.

Kneeling in her muggy
Boxwood garden Jane
Stopped weeding, tried to rise
But could not move for pain.

She saw her son’s tanned fingers
Lowering the blind
Of an attic window.
She did not know his mind.

Croquet and hectic banter
From Margaret’s backyard
Broke upon her twinges.
“En,” shrieked Nora, “garde!”

“Oh God, this life’s so wearing,
So pointless,” Margaret said.
“You’re telling me,” Andrew agreed.
“High time we both were dead.”

“It is. I have pills — let’s take them!”
He looked at her with wit.
“Just try. You know we’d never
Hear the end of it.”

Their laughter floated on the dusk.
Ken thought of dropping in,
But his nails were cracked and dirty
And his breath smelled of gin.

“Missed you at Town Meeting
Last night,” said Manuel
As Nora fingered honeydews.
“Things didn’t go too well.

Fact is, the Plant got voted in.
I call it a downright
Pity you summer people
Didn’t care enough to fight.”

“Manuel, there have been winters
We stayed here,” Nora said.
“That makes us year-round people.”
The grocer scratched his head.

“I guess I don’t mean season
So much as a point of view.”
It made her mad. She’d meant to add,
“And we do care, we do,”

But it was too late, she didn’t,
Didn’t care one bit.
Manuel counted out her change:
“. . . and ten. Will that be it?”

“Insufferable rudeness!
Of course by now it’s clear,”
Said Margaret, laying down her trumps,
“We must all get out of here.”

“We go next week,” admitted
Jane with a guilty air.
“Old friends in Locust Valley
Keep asking us down there.”

“Besides,” said Andrew quickly,
“This climate’s bothersome.
I may take Jane to Port-of-Spain —
All my roads lead to rum.”

“So they do. Well, that’s lovely,
Leaving us in the lurch,”
Said Nora, “just like what’s-his-name
Who had the Baptist church.”

“The summer’s over,” said Margaret.
“But you misunderstood:
I meant this town was ruined.
We must all get out for good.”

Ken wrapped some Canton saucers
Like a conspirator,
To be exchanged for credit
At the corner liquor store.

September. Dismal rainstorms
Made everything a blur,
Lashed Margaret into action —
It was city life for her!

“I’ll stay up here,” said Nora,
“A month or two. I need
Time to think things over,
Listen to records, read.”

She drove home from Caustic
Where Margaret caught her plane.
The windshield streamed in silence,
The wipers thrashed in vain.

October. Early twilights.
To the wharf came a blue
And silver haul of fish too small
For anything but glue.

The boatyard was a boneyard,
Bleached hull, moon-eaten chain.
The empty depot trembled
At the scream of a passing train.

Nora long past midnight
Lay rereading Emma,
Unmoved for once by a daughter’s
Soon-to-be-solved dilemma.

And late dawns. The first victim
Of Main Street’s seventeen
Doomed elms awoke and feebly shook
Its sparrow-tambourine.

IN THE November mildness
Rose delicate green spears —
Spring flowers Ken had planted.
His small eyes filled with tears:

They were coming up too early!
He sniffed and went indoors.
He dusted all the objects,
Polished the bare floors,

Bathed and oiled his person;
Now put on his best clothes,
Thought up a huge sweet cocktail,
And sipping at it chose

The first words of a letter
He had long meant to write.
But wait, his glass was empty —
A foolish oversight.

Nora heard him coughing.
She stopped her evening stroll
And went to see. With courtesy
Both sinister and droll

Ken bowed low, made her welcome,
Concocted a new drink.
Darkly hilarious he said,
“Rong rife!” and gave a wink.

One didn’t need to be Nora
To see that things weren’t right.
In his brown silk kimono
Ken sat there high as a kite.

His talk was incoherent:
Jack— his mother’s loom —
The weather — his green island —
Flowers he’d not see bloom —

The dead cat — a masked actor
Ghosts up in the hills . . .
And then those frightful spasms
Followed by small white pills.

Nora thought food might help him
And ran back for a cup
Of homemade soup. He took a sip,
Set down the cup, got up:

“Dear Missy-san, too sorty,
Night-night now. Kissing hand.”
This done, Ken headed for the stair,
Though hardly able to stand.

Next day she found him lying
Cold on his bed. “I knew,
I knew!” sobbed Nora over the phone.
“But what was there to do?

He wasn’t kin or even friend,
Just old and sick, poor dear.
It was his right to take his life,
Not mine to interfere.”

“Exactly,” said her mother.
“I’ll come tomorrow. Jack?
Try the address on Ken’s letter.
A wire may bring him back.”

It did not. The two ladies
Arranged the funeral,
Then sat at home in silence
Deeper than I can tell.

Jack sent a check weeks later
And wrote them from Tibet
A long sad charming letter,
But friendship’s sun had set.

DECEMBER. “I think sometimes,”
Said Margaret dreamily,
“That Jack was a delusion
Of the whole community.

No reasonable adult
Starts acting like a child.
How else can you explain it?
He had us all beguiled.”

Nora looked up. The mirror
Struck her a glancing blow.
Her hair once blond as summer
Was dull and streaked with snow.

“Oh tell me, Mother, tell me
Where do the years go?
I’m old, my life is ending!”
“Baby, I know, I know.”

As soon as they were calmer,
“I also,” Margaret said,
“Know what to do about it.
So get up from that bed.

I know a clever fairy
Who puts gold back in hair.
I know of jets to Rio.
It will be summer there.”

COME MAY, Ken’s garden blossomed
In memory of him —
Hyacinth, narcissus
White as seraphim.

Jane and Andrew saw it.
They’d driven up to sell
Their house at a tidy profit
To the Head of Personnel.

It had grown so big, so empty.
Their lawn was choked with weeds,
Their son in California
Barefoot, all beard and beads.

They stood among Ken’s flowers
Gazing without a word.
Jane put her hand in Andrew’s.
The cat in heaven purred.

And then a faint piano
Sounded — from where? They tried
The door, it floated open,
Inviting them inside.

Sitting at the keyboard
In a cloud of brilliant motes
A boy they’d both seen somewhere
Was playing random notes.

He rose as if uncertain
Whether to speak or run.
Jane said, “I know who you are,
You’re Joey, Manuel’s son,

Who used to cut the grass for us.
Look at you, grown so tall!”
He grinned. “I won a scholarship
At M.I.T. this fall

To study cybernetics
And flute — it’s worth a try.
I used to come and talk to Ken.
I miss that little guy.”

“One by one, like swallows . . .”
Said Andrew in the gloom
That fell when Joe departed.
“Dear God, look at this room.”

Full ashtrays, soft-drink bottles
Told an artless tale
Of adolescent revels.
Tan stacks of ninth-class mail

Lay tumbled helter-skelter.
A chill in the stirred air
Sent Jane outdoors and Andrew
To brave the tower stair.

Moon after moon had faded
The papers on Jack’s desk:
Unfinished calculation,
Doodle and arabesque.

One window framed the sunset
Transfiguring Main Street,
Its houses faintly crimson
But upright in defeat.

The other faced the harbor.
Lights of the Chemical Plant
Gloated over water.
“The grasshopper, the ant,”

Breathed Andrew, recollecting
His long-ago remark,
Then shut both views behind him
And felt his way down in dark.