LakeTown, USA

Note: COVID 19 has assailed us with a brutality our communities are not prepared for. In the virus’s terms, every error we make simply leads to more replication. Each time the virus brings out the worst in us instead of our best it gains advantage.

The virus begs.

The virus begs us to help it multiply.

And then it rewards us

with more virus.

It begs us to feel brave for ignoring it,

to blame someone else,

to embrace superstition and conspiracy,

to grasp at false cures.

It begs us to reject the democracy of facts.

It whispers that we are special and strong ones,

never mind those frail or less fortunate.

The virus never tires.

It never cares.

It never grieves.

It never lives or dies,

but it begs.

It acquires our bodies

for its exponential assembly line.

And then it rewards us

with death, sickness, loss

and more virus.

It begs us to falter,

to fatigue,

to repeat mistakes,

to feed grudges,

to turn against each other.

It begs us to forget about it.

It hopes desperately

that we wont recognize pure evil,

or realize we can stop it.

It begs us to be less human,

less compassionate, less intelligent, less unified.

More like a virus.

And it rewards us

with more virus.

Note: I haven’t posted here since my dad died. Much has changed since then. Now the world has COVID 19. Pandemics are suffered in human terms, but sadly this one is being addressed in partisan, sensationalist terms. This is causing great deal of unnecessary human suffering. I’m going to write about that little bit.

We mourn.

We of the white coats.

We of the blue scrubs.

We the doers of no harm.

We of the Red Cross.

We mourn.

We mourn the world we thought we built with you.

The compassionate, rational world.

We fear.

For our patients.

For our colleagues.

For our communities.

For our humanity.

We fear.

We fear this willful ignorance,

far more than any virus.

We wait.

For the return of safety.

For the return of sanity.

For the return of rest.

For the return of victory.

We wait.

We wait for the the well-being

of our fellow humans to be a priority again.

My smaller dog pulled all three of us across the park

this morning. Pointing her brown dog nose straight towards

the lake breeze she marched over to the shore

when normally she would hurry back inside to start

clean-up duty while my toddler shovels her breakfast onto the floor.

Paws at water’s edge she sniffed deeply into the northeasterly wind.

The hint of a sunrise added an orange tinge to her blenheim spots.

Tail curved upwards. Long ears flapping slightly.

Her impatient dog brother paced nearby unwilling to interrupt.

She stood that way for a few minutes.

Smelling the first cool hint of autumn in the wind,

hearing the coarse rustle of the drying birch and aspen leaves,

watching their slightly silver – ready to pop yellow – edges flutter.

My tiny canine paused to note the changing season.

Then she grunted softly, lowered her nose, tail and ears,

and turned homeward, brother half a pace behind,

she trotted back towards toddler breakfast.

Before the cell phone rings

or the text message sends, or the in-basket refills, or the pager beeps

I lace my shoes and run along the lake road.

Before the sun rises

or the coffee brews or the traffic honks or the kids wake up

I plod along the glacier carved shoreline.

Sprinklers whirr around the old summer cottages that were

built into four season season cottages,

built into primary residences,

then scraped to the dirt and built again.

The commerce of the day accelerates slowly.

It rises, like sun across the water

It swells and surrounds me like the new days heat

Street lights click off, house lights flick on.

Engines rev, driving headlights through the graying dawn.

Night animals scurry home

as dogs emerge with their owners.

Each footfall down this road becomes a bit harder to hear

in the growing noise of my town waking up.

Each intentionally, strung together moment a little harder to appreciate

as the busyness of day begins to blend them together.

I feel the pull of all duties,

husband, dad, doctor, citizen

that will begin again once my shoes jog

the last half mile of shoreline.

But for now the shadows of geese on the beach

keep on grouching at me.

The crickets and peep-toads cheer me on.

The last hot breeze of summer

condenses in drops on my

lemonade glass.

Another worn-out season ends.

My hammock sways on

the west wind’s sweltering exhale.

Dry grass crunches under foot.

Peeling windowsill paint flutters

like the leaves yellowing in our maple tree.

As the wind rises. Summers final gasp

flaps the orange beach towel on the porch rail,

ruffles the tops of blue waves,

bends the cattails at the shoreline,

clangs the rusted wind chime.

Towering clouds and swaying branches

start crowding out the leaning past-noon sun.

Bulging cumulo-nimbi gather

to break this heat and drench down

the first cold, gray rain of autumn.

Paddling the rock bar.

When the lake is low

the rock bar pokes up above the waves,

a natural breakwater

to a high south wind.

So we paddle it’s long diagonal length

on still water

along the north edge of this

spit of piled boulders

to ride the big waves

in the middle of the bay.

A fine mist drifts off foam topped rollers

as they break on the haphazard wall of rock.

It cuts the heat a bit

as we pick our way along this narrow calm.

Down wind the neon blur

of sail boards and kites of all kinds flash,

cutting a parallel course,

reaching broad to the heavy wind,

buffeting off the big white caps.

Orange and white buoys mark the end.

Just past mid-way across the bay

huge black waves curl unimpeded around the rocky point.

the wind crashes water over the last few rocks

where we paddle quick into the spray between waves

and surf all the way back home.

Sleep now child.

Let the boat’s hull sing

you the water’s splashing lullaby.

Let it whisper to you in the language

of all the ships at sea.

Sleep now child.

Let the warm evening breeze

flutter the edge of your thin blanket.

Let the wind’s smell of sand and grass mix

with varnished wood and damp ropes.

Sleep now child.

Let the stars of late evening

dot the inkwell black lake.

Let the fusion pink sunset

make way for the conch-shell moon.

Sleep now child.

Let the rolling rock of waves

on the small craft sooth you.

Let the engine hum slowly

as the boat chugs deeper into night.

Sleep now child.

Let my cradled arms

lift you over the dock planks.

Let the frogs and crickets welcome you

dreaming back to shore.

Hand over hand.

The sail climbs the mast,

it billows on the breeze,

heaves the hull forward.

How many times

Has a sail raised

by a halyard’s pull?

Have squinted eyes

scanned windward

for the next gust?

Has a tight fist

played out a sheet line

as a bow crashed

through the waves?

Hand over hand.

The main sheet is trimmed

it pulls in the boom,

close-hauled to the wind.

How many times

Has a boat been cast

from mooring

to ride the wind’s push?

Have the leeward wave-edges

darkened as a sailor leaned

further over the gunwale

to hold course?

Have these simple partners,

wind and sail

carried humans off to anywhere?

Hand over hand.

My daughter throws knotted coils of bow line

off the boat, screeching with joy

as they splash in the water.

I trim this old scow’s twisted rigging

and think of the subdued power

in these creaking boards and mildewed knots

to connect people through ages

the same way that their sail and keel connect

water and sky.

Squint.

Between tree shadows,

through drifting mist

towards the sun rising

on the Mahtomedi shore.

To the south the dark

island of the Manitou looms.

Somewhere a spirit bear slumbers.

A captive maiden waits.

A birch canoe beached

as a rescuing warrior stalks.

A drawn knife edge glimmers

in the new day’s first light.

His destiny on this dark island

approaches with each step,

silent as the growing dawn.

Squint.

Between tree shadows,

through drifting mist

towards the Matoska park sunrise.

You’ll see.

– For my friend V. Ford

Sunburnt shoulders ache.

Mosquito bitten ankles itch.

The faint sulfur smell of spent firecrackers

rises with the dew.

The damp flags that line our street

flap occasionally in

star-spangled splendor.

Soft wind flutters drooping leaves

and swirls the gray haze hanging over the water.

Dogs emerge tentatively

amazed to have survived last night’s

near-certain armageddon.

We pack our July fourth

left-overs into a cooler,

top off the half-melted ice.

We throw on still soggy swim suits,

still sandy flip-flops,

and drive the lake road

into a bleary-eyed sunrise.

Back to the beach again.