The phrases come to Nick Stone quicker now. They should.

The company lawyer-turned-author, who spends most of his time now break up between properties in New Gloucester and Georgetown, revealed his first guide of poetry 5 years in the past. It was the end result of a decade’s value of writing, a pastime he picked up in retirement.

His second guide, “Seaward: A Lyrical Memoir,” got here out final month, maybe with a bit extra urgency than he anticipated. Stone, 89, was recognized in August with stage 4 metastatic prostate most cancers. His illness is incurable, though with therapy docs mentioned he may stay one other 20 months. Perhaps. Most cancers is notoriously unpredictable.

Confronted with mortality, individuals typically take inventory of the lives they’ve lived and take into consideration what they need, or want, to do with their remaining weeks and months.

Stone solely desires to maintain writing. His time is working out, however he nonetheless has issues to say.

“I used to be at all times writing – I write day-after-day – however I believe over the previous a number of months I had the sensation that I wanted to get this carried out,” he mentioned.

The guide contains 112 poems, divided right into a dozen sections, that kind of inform the story of his life. His first guide, “Fragments,” was autobiographical as properly, however for the newest, he’s gone deeper.

“It’s not a random assortment of fairly poems,” he mentioned. “I’m telling tales I’ve by no means informed anybody.”

“Seaward: A Lyrical Memoir,” by Nick Stone was revealed final month.

Each books had been revealed independently via Maine Authors Publishing of Thomaston.

Dorothea Bisbas, who first met Stone when he walked into her poetry group in Palm Desert, California, greater than a decade in the past, known as the gathering “stunning.”

“I believe he desires to depart this legacy behind and since his thoughts hasn’t been altered, he has that means,” Bisbas mentioned. “It’s such an clever guide, but it surely’s not too mushy or esoteric. His writing is so out there. That is what storytelling needs to be.”

Maine poet Richard Blanco, who composed and recited a chunk for President Barack Obama’s second inauguration in 2013, supplied related reward in a blurb he wrote for the guide.

“As Jorge Luis Borges famous, poetry ought to ‘contact us bodily, because the presence of the ocean does,’ ” Blanco wrote concerning the assortment. “Nick Stone’s heartful and tenderly rendered assortment definitely touches us powerfully on this manner, embracing us with a life absolutely lived via all of the wonders that poetry awakens in us.”

In a single poem, Stone confronts his mortality in a stark, however relatable manner.

should you’re promoting inexperienced bananas
go me by
I don’t purchase inexperienced bananas anymore

I purchase ripe avocados
don’t lug these gallon milk jugs
hold my freezer empty
at all times purchase the smallest jars

received’t straighten out my sock drawer
renew journal subscriptions
heed oil change warnings
exchange worn-down tires
I’ll go up Black Friday bargains
not store ’til Christmas Eve

I don’t take into consideration the longer term
however I received’t purchase inexperienced bananas
anymore

Stone first started coming to MacMahan Island, a part of Georgetown, as a toddler. He and his spouse, Erin, moved there about 15 years in the past after he retired. The ocean, which has been outstanding in his life, reveals up repeatedly in his poems, each actually and as a metaphor.

As a company lawyer, largely in Boston, Stone was no stranger to writing. Authorized briefs and filings go on for dozens and dozens of pages. He described that as “left aspect mind functioning.” Poetry comes from the proper aspect.

He did a little bit proper aspect work, too, as a youthful man. A poignant eulogy right here. An prolonged toast at a pal’s marriage ceremony there.

As soon as he began writing extra repeatedly in retirement, it didn’t take lengthy to construct a large assortment. And he studied the craft, too, in search of steering from Bisbas in California when he would go to, and in addition with members of an area writers’ group in Maine.

“I used to be impressed along with his background and his intelligence, and the way in which he utilized that to his poetry,” Bisbas mentioned. “His work has matured, too. He has the flexibility to incorporate the reader in his storytelling. He writes about very intimate topics with out sentimentality.”

After “Fragments” got here out and was properly obtained, Stone determined to maintain writing. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, he explored themes of confinement and despair via the lens of somebody within the late stage of life. He wrote concerning the demise of George Floyd, from the conflicted place of a white man of privilege.

And he traveled again in time, too, to seize parts of his upbringing. How he struggled with a stutter as a toddler. The time he went to a burlesque present as a young person.

Final August, although, issues modified.

“I used to be shocked,” he mentioned of the most cancers analysis. Stone developed prostate most cancers 30 years in the past and had his prostate eliminated. The most cancers by no means returned, and he put it out of his thoughts.

Now, he mentioned, it’s in all places.

“It’s not one tumor that they’ll go in and take away,” he mentioned. “You’ll be able to’t let it govern your life, but it surely does spotlight the significance of residing within the second. I don’t miss any stunning chook that flies by.”

Two poems in “Seaward” – “Ode to an Apple Tree” and “Ode to a Peeper Frog” – seize on the concept of slowing down to understand life’s smaller moments.

The largest motivation for publishing his newest guide, although, was to depart one thing behind. A few of the tales, he acknowledges, are usually not flattering. However they seize his life.

“I’ve my religion,” he mentioned. “It will not be the identical as yours or standard … however I don’t concede that I’ll simply be on the leaf pile. There may be greater than that.”

Bisbas mentioned it saddens her to assume Stone’s time is dwindling, however she is also impressed by his continued creativity.

“He’s not carried out but, I’ll inform you,” she mentioned.

It’s true. Stone shared one poem that didn’t make it in time for his guide. It’s known as “Worry.”

After being suggested
to benefit from my subsequent twelve months

white lab coat
stroking chin
he prognosed

likelihood is
one among these
would be the first

lungs or
bones or
mind

suck oxygen via a hose
till they strap you in a vent
snap a leg face the screaming ache
see thoughts devoured as you watch

voices chant
from playgrounds way back

eeny meeny miny moe

if I holler
let me go.”

MORE POEMS BY NICK STONE, from “Seaward: A Lyrical Memoir,” 176 pages, $18.95, out there for buy at indieauthorbooks.com and Print: A Bookstore in Portland, Royal River Books in Yarmouth and Sherman’s places all through Maine.

Island Stroll

first-growth fallen timber
enrobed in emerald moss
tiny creatures feast
trunks slowly soften
into the forest ground

after rainfall
orange mushroom
clings to decomposing stump
scrumptious in garlic butter
if I named it proper
an opportunity I’m going to take

deer paths over-arched by spruce
remind me that I’m not alone
strolling slowly watching carefully
I might even see a doe with fawn
not searching season but

osprey fishing over ocean
calls to reassure her chicks
then screams in battle
with bald eagle
that has discovered her nest

lifetimes winding down
others being born

Extinction — A Lament

5 hundred species
gone
since I used to be born
Tasmanian tigers
Carolina parakeets
Oahu tree snails
golden toads
all failed Darwin’s health take a look at
extinguished by my variety

now has our flip come?

incinerated forests grasslands properties
drought turns farms to mud
rising oceans develop our coasts
famines mass migrations
tens of millions die by plague
wars take their countless toll

our epitaph could also be

HERE LIES THE ONLY SPECIES
TO EXTERMINATE ITSELF

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