Today’s poem is “Girl at the Blue Hill Fair” by Marnie Reed Crowell. Marnie is a naturalist and author of a half-dozen books, including Greener Pastures and Great Blue, Odyssey of a Heron. Her poems appear in the anthology Take Heart- More Maine Poems and accompany photographs from Audubon members in Sky of Birds.
“Girl at the Blue Hill Fair” was written for Marnie’s granddaughter Caroline. She writes, “Every year at the end of summer there is much excitement about going to the Blue Hill Fair… I tried to capture the fairground’s wealth of sights and sounds which can be nearly overwhelming. The visual image of that sweet young face looking for a bit of reassurance remains indelible in my memory…”
Girl at the Blue Hill Fair
by Marnie Reed Crowell
High enough to view the bay
the Ferris wheel carries the intrepid few
above the crowds who flow below
like a river eddying at the merry go round
where a sweet girl clings to her pretty horse
in measured pace of calliope prance
serenely up and down around
the whirling current of carnival lights
cotton candy color jewels of glass.
Like Mardi Gras Crewe tossing favors
to the crowd she smiles and waves,
this bud of a Rose Bowl beauty,
small princess on her palfrey but at every round
a quarter turn too soon I see her lean against
the flow and scan us all in anxious search until
my face she finds, our bond the gem amid the glitter.
Poem copyright © 2018 by Marnie Reed Crowell.