Sunset in Hanover, by Steven Atkins
Welcome to “Dear Daybreak”, a weekly Daybreak column. It features short vignettes about life in the Upper Valley: an encounter, a wry exchange, a poem or anecdote or reflection… Anything that happened in this region or relates to it and that might strike us all as interesting or funny or poignant.
After today, Dear Daybreak will be on hiatus until the fall of 2026, but if you’d like to submit an item for when it starts back up, just go here!
Dear Daybreak:
Viral
I knew it would get a lot of Likes: the photo of the young man
lifting his dog as if she were a woman who’d given up legs
for the sake of love, just like that mermaid, who gave her tail.
Labels stick. The feed applies them. Dog, man, tree. This is
a photo of love the easy way. Last week I caught (with my lens)
tipped faces of farmers listening to each other, holding words
for each other, to consider after germination. Even so, I knew
it wasn’t going to get a lot of hearts, or smileys—ordinary
hardly ever goes viral. Dogs, though, that’s something else. I saw
this white furball with a jeweled collar, posing on a kitchen chair
in someone else’s photograph. Hard to believe how many shares
it gained by afternoon—hope, darling, precious, sweet,
all the words I didn’t hear when I was growing up (oldest child,
make sure the others eat their supper, clean their rooms), hushed
and reminded: Be seen, not heard. Be good in school. Be clean,
learn words. Study more, perform on tests, be best. Grateful now
that I wasn’t looking for angel wings or commentary—I’d have laid
my soul at an altar if something holy asked me to, and parents
(mine) were halfway there, rod and staff, pointing toward
that thicket where a scapegoat struggled. A goat will not go viral, either,
unless it’s just a kid. One time, I did.
— Beth Kanell, Waterford, VT
Dear Daybreak,
Community Chorus meet composer. Composer, hear Community Chorus sing your beautiful song. All possible via Zoom at Mascoma High School.
The Upper Valley Music Center’s Community Chorus, of which I am a member, performed their spring concert in mid-April in the Mascoma High School auditorium. For a year, the Chorus had been delving into the deeper meaning of the lyrics of s special song called “Two Strange Worlds.” The text is based on a poem by Margaret Walker called “The Struggle Staggers Us”, and the music was composed by J. Reese Norris. In this time of divide, the message of this song had captured us: “There is a journey from the me to you, there is a journey from the you to me, a union of the two strange worlds must be.”
During our dress rehearsal, our director, Annie Arrington, who previously sang in a choir directed by Norris, arranged for the chorus to Zoom with Mr. Norris and sing him our rendition of his beautiful song. He gave us background on how and why he wrote the song and its meaning for him. He was commissioned to write it for the Mississippi Bicentennial in 2017 and thought it was reflective of the struggles that have often staggered Mississippi and other places to overcome the racial divide, poverty, political strife - learning to find a union of two strange worlds. It was so meaningful to meet the composer and hear his thoughts as the chorus has embraced this song over the year and for him to hear us sing his creation with feeling. Technology use at its finest!
The divide is daunting, the divide is real, the struggle often does stagger us, but is there opportunity to find union of these two strange worlds? The chorus sang a message of love, of peace, of fun and joy, striving to build community and union.
I’d add that all are welcome to join the chorus starting in the fall—building community and sharing a joy of singing. Upper Valley Music Center (uvmusic.org) has the details.
— Christine Hoskin, Etna
Dear Daybreak:
John the hermit
This is how spring
arrives one morning
hitching down the road
first time since fall
missing half his teeth
and reeking of tobacco
so you pull over
give him a ride
let him unravel
a string of tall tales
with a wide-mouthed grin
that warms your heart
while a weary landscape
waits to catch a lift
from sunbeams creeping
up the frozen valley
and there you are
leaning out a window
greeting the sweet
damp smell of soil
like a long-lost friend
— Danny Dover, Bethel
