Preserved in Amber

Betsy Joseph

August 3, 2025

Disappointed that Becky’s Seafood restaurant was closed for the season

and we had missed the chance to try her legendary lobster roll,

we continued down the county road back toward Bar Harbor,

idly passing and glancing at New England clapboard homes.

I leaned forward peering at a soft yellow saltbox just on the right,

my attention divided between two sights:

the sign announcing “The Clutter Shop” in large block letters

and the older woman sitting alone on the narrow porch.

The sign spoke truthfully, for clutter of all kinds

lounged lazily in haphazard positions on patches of grass,

contents indiscriminate from my viewpoint.

My focus, as we drew alongside the shuttered saltbox,

then drifted to its probable owner.

She seemed unaware of anything but the end of September sun,

tilting her face to receive its benevolent warmth,

knowing it would become all the more rare

as the calendar ticked along, as the last of the wild Maine berries

were raked from the bushes, soon destined for freezer or jam.

What would become of the scattered clutter, I wondered,

then supposed these idle items would rejoin

their assorted and mismatched kinfolk indoors. 

My thoughts returned to the woman unmoved, 

eyes closed in wistful repose, face still reaching for the sun,

wishing perhaps that summer could be harnessed

and time preserved in golden amber

while knowing that temperatures of twenty below

loomed as a certainty in the months ahead

as they predictably did most years in this place

where she chose to reside with her many treasures.

Betsy Joseph lives in Dallas and has poems that have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry books published by Lamar University Literary Press: Only So Many Autumns (2019) and Relatively Speaking (2022), a collaborative collection with her brother, poet Chip Dameron. In addition, she and her husband, photographer Bruce Jordan, have produced two books, Benches and Lighthouses, which pair her haiku with his black and white photography.