"The week in August you come home,
adult, professional, aloof,
we roast and carve the fatted calf
-- in our case home-grown pig, the chine
garlicked and crisped, the applesauce
hand-pressed. Hand-pressed the greengage wind.
Nothing is cost-effective here.
The peas, the beets, the lettuces
hand-sown are raised to stand apart.''
-- From "Family Reunion,'' by Maxine Kumin (1925-2014)
From 1976 until her death she and her husband lived on a farm in Warner, N.H., where they bred Arabian and quarter horses. She was the U.S. poet laureate in 1981-82.
Main Street in Warner, N.H. about 1908.
