This week’s poem, by Ellen Goldsmith, offers glimpses of a journey to the easternmost point of the country — as well as a journey into silence. I love this poem’s clarion imagery; its plainspoken interplay of motion, light and sound, and its closing intimation of how profoundly we can let the world quiet us.
Ellen Goldsmith reads, writes and teaches poetry. Author of four chapbooks, her first full-length collection, “Are We There Yet?,” is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. “Left Foot, Right Foot,” her most recent chapbook, is an illness and recovery story in 28 poems, and her poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies. Goldsmith holds an Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University and is professor emerita of The City University of New York. She lives in Cushing.
On the Way to Lubec
1.
A lone rock rests
on blueberry barrens
Light touches everything
the way
a beloved melody
brightens the air
2.
I say to my husband
I am wanting
to make more room
for silence
3.
We stop at Quoddy Head,
stand still
at land’s edge until
water’s rumble silences.
– Ellen Goldsmith
Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “On the Way to Lubec” appeared in the 2025 Midcoast Poetry Journal and is forthcoming in “Are We There Yet?” (Kelsay Books). It appears by permission of the author.