Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: Summer Episcopalians ~notes from an introvert

Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate

In his poetry Thomas Moore of Brooksville often writes about people and places in Maine. Today he concentrates on Episcopalians in a nearby coastal town.

Summer Episcopalians ~notes from an introvert by Thomas R. Moore

They are more self-confident than I,
and even though I?m one of them,

they rattle me when I overhear their spiels
in deli about imported Swiss before

choosing Champagne Brie, or when
these women, white-haired, blue-blooded,

chat so self-assuredly in coffee and tea,
their crisp tennis dresses showing 

their pedigree with baskets full of organic
pears, natural chicken thighs,

and English breakfast tea. The men
are clean-shaven with jaws that say

prominent, sailing tans melding
into winter?s Merlot seas. Their

faces are almost names. I dodge
into canned vegetables and flee.

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Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2012 by Thomas R. Moore. Reprinted from Chet Sawing: Poems, Fort Hemlock Press, 2012, by permission of Thomas R. Moore. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Special Consultant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at mainepoetlaureate@gmail.com or 207-228-8263. Take Heart: Poems from Maine, an anthology collecting the first two years of this column, is now available from Down East Books.