This past Saturday’s unseasonably warm temperatures brought many to recall their favorite summer memories and destinations.
Haverhill native and poet Dr. Raymond F. Comeau crafted a beautiful poem in time for the start of last summer, but time and space delayed its publication. This weekend’s reminder presents an opportunity below to travel back in time.
Now of Belmont, Comeau is a retired dean and current lecturer at Harvard University Extension School. He is also a trustee, emeritus, of the John Greenleaf Whittier Birthplace in Haverhill.
A SIGN AT SUNRISE
IN A WELLS BEACH MOTEL
It was a torch below the horizon
Then a brilliant deep red eye
Impossible to even glance at
Except for those gabby
Zigzagging seagulls
Full of grace before the dawn
But it was the beam along the swells
Sparkling from sun to shore
That took aim I swear
Infiltrating through the window
And pulling out of me like a saint
The Our Father a rarity on my lips
I remember Poe writing
That our sins if they were known
Would burn the paper they were written on
And I confess being 80
That my sins would burn a hole
But will the beam make any difference
© Raymond Comeau June 2023