The Poets’ Corner is a new section of The Complement that will feature poems by RVM residents — poems, chants, shanties, doggerel. All submissions will be considered, with favor shown to those most touching to the heart and soul.

In Spring time, poets venture forth, along with robins, rabbits, dreamers, and entrepreneurs, seeing in spring the potential of life, all around. Here are some of the poems that have sprung from the well springs of RVM this month.

Milt Friedman

Connection

Jan Hines

I see him cross the room
A small boy in a body grown tall
He balances carefully
Struggling with each step
Told he would never walk or talk,
We watch with wonder at his effort
Acknowledging the years
It took to reach this goal
He finds his couch and lies
Pillowing his head with an arm
Raises a leg to rest upon his knee.
I call his name and he turns his head
But not to look my way.
He fixes his gaze on the ceiling above
And laughs aloud at something
He cannot share with me
I call his name once more
And, with annoyance, it seems,
He picks up a magazine
And turns the pages rapidly
A ritual he’s found to fill his days.
I watch him, and for a third time
I say his name.
He pauses, not moving and I wait
He turns his head and his blue eyes
Stare into mine
The corners of his mouth turn up
And for one brief moment
I see the boy inside

The 100 Year Old Man Who Jumped Out Of the Window

JoAnn Basin

Did you hear about the
Old man who turned 100?
That very day
He was in a home where he
Didn’t want to stay
He jumped out of the window
Landed on his feet
Then he gayly ran out to the street.
He didn’t want a party. he
Didn’t want a fuss
He did not want a treat with
Ice cream and cake to eat.
The staff ran around looking
They set off an alarm
They finally found him
He meant no harm!
He wanted peace and quiet
As if to say
I don’t need a fuss to be happy on my special day.

tic toc

Gloria Young

time, like the sea, is a force and creature all its own
we stand on the shore, watching the days become years
believing there’s time as hungry waves devour the sand
time to dance with Anna Karenina in St. Petersburg
to ride with Don Quixote, to walk Dublin’s streets in Ulysses
later, the yellow brick road over the rainbow of our dreams
time to recover from the nightmares of slavery in Beloved
still time to ask John Donne for whom are the bells tolling
There’s time for everything. There’s simply, time. Time for it all.
Until there isn’t.

Yes and No

Milt Friedman

We know by now that yes
is not always the best answer
that no is sometimes a necessary
word to speak
out loud
and to ourselves

And in nature there are plenty of nos

Yes, however,
is remarkably unique to life
rocks don’t seem to say yes
But birds do and butterflies

Outside the clouds are blown
across the sun

submitted by Connie Kent

From Richard Lederer’s book entitled “Crazy English” a poem called “English” by T.S. Watt ….

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, lough, and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead—
For goodness’ sake don’t call it “deed”!
Watch out for meat and great and dead.
(They rhyme with suite and straight and bed.)
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s dose and rose and lose
Just look them up–and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart–
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn’t learned at fifty-five.

by Eleanor Lippman

Two things governed the decisions my family made: financial issues and lack of imagination.

The Atlantic City boardwalk taken during a visit when I was an adult

So, when it came to family vacations, the only out of town location my family ever considered was Atlantic City, New Jersey, or as we in Philadelphia called it, “Down the shore”.

Financials determined whether we even saw Atlantic City during the summer or whether we were lucky enough to actually vacation there and how long we stayed.

To prepare for an actual down the shore vacation, my father would empty out his delivery truck, moving its contents to the basement of our house, and we would pile into the truck sitting on suitcases and holding on to beach paraphernalia and other much needed supplies, three and eventually four children, two adults, everything needed for our stay. After unloading and settling us in at our temporary lodging, my dad would return to Philadelphia to work. If our stay included a full weekend or two, he would arrive in his delivery truck on Saturday after his morning run and on Sunday afternoon, he would return to our empty house in Philadelphia. He’d spend his two half days bravely sitting on the beach with us under an umbrella with several bath towels covering his legs completely. You see, my father, with his corn flower blue eyes, had skin the color of milk, skin that was so sensitive to the sun, any exposure would lead to misery. With one exception. My father drove his delivery truck with the driver’s side window down and his left arm resting half outside and half inside ready to manually signal his turn direction. By the end of summer, the skin on his left arm was nut brown from his finger tips to where his sleeve ended with a white band of protected skin under his wrist watch. That arm never feared the rays of the sun. His right arm was always milky white.

My parents on the beach. Notice my dad’s very tanned left arm. I cannot tell from this photo whether he still had his bushy mustache.

During one of our summer vacations, when we rented a beach house for two or three weeks, my father showed up on weekends as was his usual practice, and on the final day, with his truck emptied out, he was ready to haul us and our gear back to Philadelphia.

When he arrived to take us home, he had a big surprise, but we had to guess what it was. No clues other than “something new”. All during the packing and loading the truck we pestered him with guesses. All during the ride home there were more, millions of ideas of ‘what was new’. We’d yell out a new guess and hear him laugh and watch him shake his head no.

We reached home, wife and four children, and still had not guessed what was new. After unloading our things and reloading the truck with my dad’s merchandise and still flinging guesses at him, my mother called us into the kitchen for dinner. I was probably about eight years old at the time and I remember my very last idea for what was new. As I stood in the doorway to the kitchen, I was certain the answer was sitting on the shelf across the room: “a new toaster”. Who knows what prompted that thought, but it was the best I could do.

I’ll never forget his big reveal. As his four children gathered around him, he was ready to tell.

The answer: he had shaved off his bushy mustache.

To this day, I still don’t know if my mother had guessed correctly.

The Manor Library is currently closed for renovations after one of the fire sprinklers was set off by mistake.  Library staff have informed us that damage was mostly limited to the periodicals, binders, and reference collection in the reading room.  The administrative areas, computers, and almost all of the other collections were undamaged, and the library is expected to reopen later this month.  When that happens, the monthly display described below and the featured books will be available. RVM staff, contractors, and library volunteers are all working to get our library resources back on line.

by Anne Pelish

And the Award goes to ….  Since March is Academy Awards’ time, the RVM library will recognize authors and books that have won prestigious awards.  Some of the award categories, and the RVM library holdings they represent, are as follows.

The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded in 2017 to the author who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.  Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go are representative of his work.

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during the preceding calendar year. Recipients include Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad.

National Book Awards are given to one book (author) annually in each of five categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translation, and young people’s literature. The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich and The Spectator Bird by William Stegner are represented in the fiction category.

The Goodreads’ Choice Awards reflect what you and your friends are really reading.  Many popular books have received this award, including Kristin Hannah’s The Women and Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library.

Mystery is a very popular genre and the RVM library has many books in this category.  There are many awards for mysteries including the following:

The Agatha Awards, named for Agatha Christie, are literary awards for mystery and crime writers who write in the traditional mystery subgenre: books typified by the works of Agatha Christie . . . loosely defined as mysteries that contain no explicit sex, excessive gore or gratuitous violence, and are not classified as ‘hard-boiled.’“   Louise Penny’s All the Devils Are Here and Ann Cleeve’s The Long Call are two examples in our library.

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars.  Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe, a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theater published or produced in the previous year.  William Kent Krueger’s Ordinary Grace, and Noah Hawley’s Before the Fall have won Edgars.

Crime Writer’ Association (CWA) Mick Herron is the 2025 winner of the Diamond Dagger — the highest accolade in the genre.  Herron’s books include Joe Country, London Rules, and Real Tigers.

Anthony Horowitz is the winner of the CWA Dagger in the Library Award.  This award rewards authors who have supported libraries and their users through taking part in library events.  Moonflower Murders and The Twist of a Knife are two examples of his work.

And the winner is … all the residents of Rogue Valley Manor for having a great library with a top selection of books to choose from.

Pictured with her beautiful smile is library volunteer Meryl Hanagami.