WINCHENDON — A panel of three distinguished judges recently proclaimed Susan Middleton of Ashfield the winner of the first Beals Prize for Poetry for her poem, Crossing Tidewater Basin after Visiting Mom in the Hospital. Second place went to Barbara Lemoine of Northfield for Instructions for Sleep, and Elaine Reardon of Warwick took third with Hye Holiday Gathering. Other finalists included Veronica L. Derby of Ashburnham, Sharon Harmon of Royalston, Laura Rodley of Shelburne Falls, Stephen Seraichick of Keene, NH, and Sara Williams of Gardner. Judges for the competition were Trish Crapo, Candace Curran and Samantha Wood. The competition honors the memory of Charles L. Beals, the benefactor of the Beals Memorial Library in Winchendon, Massachusetts.
The winning poem is included below:
Crossing Tidewater Basin After Visiting Mom in the HospitalFlat land leaves me uneasy—
no mountains, no hills, nothing to break
the horizon, like a streak of phosphors
sliding across a dark screen:
EKG’s mosquito whine at life’s end.
Give me the lively jerks and twitches
that a rocky bluff makes against an ocean sky,
or a ridgeline of trees’ tufted profile—
as reassuring to the eye
as heartbeat rhythms to the ear:
Come walk here, invites the hillside.
The edge is thrilling, calls the promontory.
Even treeless prairies, shaped by the long-ago
press of a glacier’s frigid tongue,
are not cold to the eye
but warm as the breath of life—
Grasses ride waves of rolling earth
like whales emerging from the sea
to arc, then nose down below:
Slow but not still.
Quiet but for their huge breathing.