Featured Poet: Don Burness, Rindge
 Don Burness was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1941. He has lived in eight countries and traveled in more than sixty. He speaks seven languages. He is the author of 23 books including 11 collections of poetry. His twelfth book Tombstones (twenty three books, Baltimore, Maryland) is due out early 2010. Books of his have been published in Nigeria, Italy, Portugal as well as USA. He is the American correspondent to Odissea (Milan, Italy), a paper devoted to cultural and social issues. An exhibit of his paintings, Poetry and Painting, was held in September-October 2009 at the Hancock, NH Library. He has been given the title Ojemba Enweilo (traveler who makes no enemy) by his friend, the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe.
The very poor health of my wife Mary-Lou has changed our lives. She is at home now with me in Rindge. She needs 24-hour care. For over a decade we spent winters in Portugal, but a stroke in early 2008 ended that stage of our life. Last winter she was well enough to go to St. Augustine, Florida. So yesterday when the first snowstorm arrived, I was looking out on Lake Monomonac; I happened to be reading the poem “Fallen Snow” by Alykul Osmonov of Kyrgyzstan – and I looked at Mary-Lou lying on the couch – and I wrote the following poem.
Fallen Snow
it has been many years
since I have spent a winter
in New Hampshire
a december snow
is burying the land
mallards dressed in flakes of white
decorate the lake
I had forgotten
winter in New Hampshire is beautiful
and beautiful you my dear
every season with you
has been a festival
now you are old and frail
in need of care
I look at you and I’m aware
how great it is to be alive
always a mixture
of the old and the new
and how blessed I’ve been
to share it all with you!
9 December 2009
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