Susanne and I just returned from two weeks visiting the Maritime Provinces of Canada. The climate was perfect, the food was great and nobody seemed to care about conflicts of interest, bribes, emails or Trumpisms.

It’s been a little warm since we got back here in New Hampshire but it’s supposed to get a little warm in August.

The fish are jumping and the corn is high. Corn is important here. There is nothing better than New Hampshire sweet corn grown in northern New England and freshly picked.

To my readers from overseas, and there seem to be a lot of you, I would suggest a trip to New Hampshire that runs anytime from mid-August until mid-October. You have a chance to eat some truly wonderful fresh produce, take some spectacular photos and watch the world change colors.

Did you know that the state of New Hampshire has more land under forest now than it had two hundred years ago? If the world is starting to feel a little crowded, we provide a great change of pace.

We have been invaded by a few city folk who want to make us just like New York or Massachusetts, but, fortunately, the majority have worked to maintain our special status. We are a population that likes to find its own path, and refuses to be stampeded onto the crowded paths. We cherish independence, ethical living and the use of common sense. I hope we can sustain that despite all the negative vibrations that emanate from much of the world around us.

Sometimes it is easy to lose perspective in our lives. I wrote a poem a few years ago, Wandering in Cemeteries (Riding in Boxcars, Snap Screen Press, 2006), that will, perhaps, remind us of what is important.

Glenn K. Currie

                  Wandering in Cemeteries

Monuments to those,

Who spent their lives

Worrying.

Living in comas.

Hidden now

Beneath the covers.

Monuments to those

Who raged inanely.

Angry at the weather,

Or the news.

Passions wasted,

On passing storms.

Monuments to those

Burning their lives away

In the furnace

Of somedays.

Ashes carefully saved

In time’s vault.

Monuments to those

Seeking immortality.

Striving for greatness,

Interrupted in their quest.

Their only mantles,

The first snow.

A city of souls,

Filled with regrets.

Unfinished stories,

Written in stone.

Read by those

Wandering in cemeteries.