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| Poet Paul Marion |
Paul Marion has been a writer and community activist since the 1970s. He
is the author of several collections of poetry as well as the editor of
the early writings of Jack Kerouac,
Atop an Underwood, and other titles. His recent book
Mill Power
tells the story of the innovative national park in Lowell,
Massachusetts, and the city’s acclaimed revival, a model for small
industrial cities everywhere. His work has appeared in anthologies and
literary journals such as
Alaska Quarterly Review and
The Massachusetts Review.
In 1978 he created Loom Press, a small publishing company that promotes
writing from the Merrimack River Valley. Among other accomplishments on
the community front, he co-founded the Lowell Folk Festival and Lowell
Heritage Partnership, an alliance of people and organizations whose
mission is to care for architecture, nature, and culture. His latest collection of poetry is
Union River.
From Union River: Poems and Sketches by Paul
Marion (Bootstrap Press, 2017)
The Yellow Gate
We
crossed Harvard Square at twilight.
Bluegrass
troubadours caught coins in an alley.
Our
lemonade at the Café Algiers was tall and sour.
We
kept our voices down. At slim tables
Night’s
royalty sipped pomegranate soda.
New Yorker
couples puffed twin thin cigars.
A
temptress who could have ruled a sandy country
Ordered
a cup of goat yogurt, and next door
Jugglers
tossed fire outside the place with the yellow gate:
Women
upstairs would peal sheer grace if they were bells.
A man
stretches muscle strings into a physical region
Where
the dance will decide what the body can do.
In
this great well of action, rhythm bounds out of beings
As if
they were trees releasing their inner rings.
