'Into the moonlit woods'

“We climb into the cellar hole

of the old Bailey place

that caught fire in the middle

of the night, the seven children

who raced into the moonlit woods

in weightless clothes gowns and bedclothes’’

— From “Into the Forest,’’ by Anna Birch (1970), reflecting her experiences as a child in Hollis, N.H.

Free lunch

“In the Clover” (watercolor), by Jeanette Fournier, a North Woodstock, N.H., painter.

Woodstock Inn Brewery, in North Woodstock

— Photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel 

A temporary treatment for SAD

“Christmas Cactus, Winter Light” (oil on panel), by Yvonne Troxell Lamothe, in the show “Beyond the Curve,’’ at Galatea Fine Art, Boston, Dec. 3-Jan. 16

The gallery says:

“{Ms. Lamothe} has been producing both oil paintings and watercolors mainly completed en plein air. Yvonne embraces her roots in New England. Finding intrigue with marshlands, woodlands and glorious vistas of Quincy, Mass., and Greater Boston’s South Shore, where she now lives and her cabin in Ossipee, N.H., and the White Mountains where she finds solitude gives her ample inspiration for painting. Trips to the Maine coast and Vermont offer great additional and endless places to stop and paint. It is no wonder that such a range of American painters have found their way here to New England. Among her favorites are Marsden Hartley, Lois Dodd and Milton Avery. Her paintings show close connections to the earth because of the unusual perspectives that she finds to insure a closeness to her subject. Color is of essence to Yvonne and this joy can be felt in her work. And, of course, as the earth becomes more threatened, she hopes her paintings will inspire others to take time to appreciate and celebrate our planet.’’

View of Marina Bay and Boston across Quincy Bay from Wollaston Beach, in Quincy

Center Ossipee in 1915

The tie-loving ghost

“Last night my color-blind chain-smoking father
who has been dead for fourteen years
stepped up out of a basement tie shop
downtown and did not recognize me.’’

— From “My Father’s Neckties,’’ by Maxine Kumin (1925-2014), a U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winner and a Warner, N.H., horse farmer.

Statue of New Hampshire Gov. Walter Harriman in Ms. Kumin’s town of Warner, N.H.