July Storm
Like a tall woman walking across the hayfield
the rain came slowly, dressed in crystal and the sun.
Rustling along the ground, she stopped at our apple tree
only for a whispering minute, then swept darkening
skirts over the lake,
and so serenely climbed the wooden hills.
Was the rainbow a ribbon that she wore?
We saw it when she was gone. It seemed a part of her brightness
and the way she moved lightly, but with assurance
over the earth.
Elizabeth Coatsworth
Gary Lawless, owner of Gulf of Maine Books, was kind enough to send me this poem.
Coatsworth and her husband, Henry Beston (who helps open the pages of A Rider’s Reader) lived in Maine for more than 50 years.
Lawless writes:
“They bought the farm in the early 1930s. She died in 1986 and we came here to caretake right after her death. I read her poems at her funeral…She left six horses and a pony. Someone had to be here…Elizabeth published over 125 books in her lifetime, a full and beautiful life.”