Poems About Northrop Camp
Poems about Northrop Camp
(All poems are reproduced with permission of the poet.)
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Do you recall how we sat by the smokily burning fire-camp logs
Singing "The Ash Grove", our favorite song?
Or how we awoke to the bugle call every morning,
Rushed to wash-up in the icy fresh splashes, brush our teeth after dressing,
Ran to the house for breakfast -- where there was Central Plumbing?

Under the watchful and caring eyes of Mrs. Mollie Ruden we were inspected,
But lots of listening and talking about the daily chores were mixed with our chatter.
Eagerly we took on the day,
Meeting all new challenges without dismay.
Do you recall the Blueberry picking, or the sweet smell of honeysuckle by the pool,
The crawling 'round the grasses in the meadow,
As we hid going deer-watching in the evenings,
Passing by the mushrooms under the white pines, along with some Indian pipes peeping.

And that dirt road brown dust of the broad road leading outward
To a world forgotten, between the lines of Frost, Millay, and some hanging vines?

--- Enilda Lozada (camper, 1961)


Northrop Mother

There's a tadpole in the pantry
(He'll be there for quite a spell),
In the kitchen there's a mollusc
With a very funny smell.
On the window sill, a spider
Weaves her web, quite undisturbed.
In a Northrop camper's household,
Nature must proceed uncurbed.

In a bottle, Mrs. Mantis
Rears her 47 pups,
We must drink our tea from saucers,
There are snails in all our cups.
There are grasses in our glasses,
There are mosses in the sink,
There is something in the bathtub,
Possibly the Missing Link.

Rocks of geologic glamor
Still encumber the back stair,
Seaweed, birds' nests, gulls' wings, lichens,
Get into the family's hair.
For the last two months a gypsy
Has encamped upon our sill.
(He's a moth, a sloth that slumbers,
Two months hence he'll be there still!)

Yet, though Nature crowds our mantel,
Preempts pots and pans and dishes,
Though fat worms live in our basin,
In our jam jars, little fishes,
Though each corner has its "treasure",
Some strange natural surprise,
At this clutter, who would mutter,
Who would have it otherwise,
Having glimpsed the pure and glowing
Stars in Northrop campers' eyes.

--- signed "Flamingo" (The above poem was found in 1999 in a trunk in the cellar of the late Dr. Rose Mayor. The author is evidently the mother of a Northrop camper, but there is no other clue to her identity. Judging by the ages of the surrounding geologic strata in the trunk, the poem seems to have been written in the early 1970's.)

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