On the eve of July 4, our poem this week, Sandy Stott’s “Declaration,” turns to Henry David Thoreau, who happened to have begun his time at Walden Pond on July 4, 1845. I love this poem’s clear voice, its stream-like forward momentum, and its reverence for our interdependence.

Stott lives in Brunswick and, when not writing, spends a good deal of time working in local conservation efforts, often referred to in “Your Land,” a column he writes for the Times Record about public lands. His 2018 book, “Critical Hours – Search and Rescue in the White Mountains,” is in its third printing. Once upon a career, he was a teacher of nonfiction writing and literature, with a focus on Thoreau, the Transcendentalists and the literature of conflict.

Declaration
By Sandy Stott

Two years, two months, two days.
Henry Thoreau was wary of symbols

thoughts and things that go two
by two into the ark of the mind.

And when he took time off, absconded
with it to the pond on July 4th,

1845, he scoffed at those who saw
declaration of independence, in truth

he might have said, I am more
dependent than ever, on this pond

on this earth, on these feet, not
to mention the sky that shines

in the water, a medium really
for seeing up and down, for

seeing two ways at once, a unity
upon which I row my boat and

in which I bathe every day.

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. “Declaration” copyright © 2013 by Sandy Stott, is reprinted from the The Roast (Thoreau Farm Blog 2013). It appears by permission of the author.