LakeTown, USA

April morning cacophony. Pad-pad-pad-pad of dog paws down the road to the boat launch. Honk-a-honk of geese grazing the shallows. Konk-la-ree of the red-wing swaying on a sapling top. Cheerily-cheer of the robin run-stop-run-stop-running in the park grass. Chick-a-dee-dee flits between pine branches. Munch-munch-splash of an unseen muskrat. Breep-bree-e of the peepers swarming in the marsh. April morning cacophony commutes the drone of the pre-rush hour highway. While long pink rays of sun climb the horizon. Without making a sound.

Bobbing

is about all we’re doing.

My sister and I lose the thread

of our conversation

as the old

J-scow we salvaged

from the back lot

of the boat works

drifts vaguely

towards home.

On another day

I might curse

the obstinate wind for its

abrupt drop

at the absolute

farthest point of our trip,

But with fine weather and good company

returning home may as well

take all day.

Ugly boat

barges it’s flat square bow through the Sunday chop.

Graceless. Unrefined. Boorish.

I marvel at it as we make our way back to its mooring spot.

Windshield-less. Suppository shaped. Struggles to hold a straight course.

Gunwales uncomfortably close to the water line.

Wide yellowed fiberglass deck with neon teal and pink trim.

Underpowered, carbureted old two stroke engine

shrieks like a chainsaw with sinusitis.

Its owner loops a bowline around the dock post

And with a smile reminds me:

Ugly boat’s better’n no boat at all.

Tulips tilt towards the evening sun.

Broad petals fold up their radiant reds and yellows for the day.

Confused by the late solstice daylight and my crazy work schedule you ask,

After my nap can we find more worms?

I explain that you will wake up tomorrow morning I’ll be at work.

When you get home from work can we find more worms?

Sure.

You smile as your heavy eyes close slowly.

The evening sun filters through your bedroom curtains.

I watch you sleep until my pager buzzes in my pocket.

Another day ends for the tulips and the two-year-olds.

The rest of the world keeps spinning around.

Night swim

frightens fishes

as pale bodies dive

into absolute black.

Some sprinting out

to the swim-raft

others just floating in place

to cool off.

Moonlight cuts

through cloud

as ghostly figures

climb quickly

up the cold ladder.

Then quick,

towel off

and race back towards

blinding

house lights.

Night swim

frightens fishes but

frogs chirp a

throaty Bravo!

Herron hunts the shoreline

at sunrise.

Concealed between

bull rushes bending

in the breeze.

Herron stalks the shallows

at breakfast time.

Neck curled, head tilted,

knobbed knees bend and straightening,

black and golden eye peering

as skinny fish swirl around

a flat yellow foot.

Herron statue-still on the sandbar

at noon

body like a

coiled spring ready

to strike.

Herron twisted

like a question mark

next to a dock post

eating fish dinner

as the sun-rays slant

toward day’s end.

The sun shower stings a bit.

Hissing droplets speckle exhaust pipe chrome.

Big cold raindrops on skin cut the

heat from the aluminum engine block

as we chug down the lake road.

Your arms clasp tight around me.

Your laughter about the sudden drenching rain

competes in my ear with the whistling wind.

The tires a moment ago gripping

on the hot asphalt

now nearly hydroplane.

Drenched

– except where you hold me –

we coast back under the garage.

I’m about to apologize

for the unexpected storm

on our first ever motorcycle ride

when you say:

Maybe we shouldn’t sell it after all…

So the old black twin

I bought in college stays.

Snowdrops in the door garden

bloom by drooping as an April storm flies.

Their tiny milk-white petal-cups

bend beneath the infinite hopes of a new spring.

Their rarified green slender stems

bend beneath the weight of last year’s detritus.

Stooping to rise every April

through frozen dead leaves and frosty earth.

Since Theophrastus dubbed them “white violets”,

the Galanthus nivalis have shrugged off millennias’ worth

of late April snowflakes and reluctant thaws.

They called it a waterspout.

I remember the storm siren throbbing in the distance,

the rain quitting abruptly,

the sky turning drab brackish green,

and a sound like an approaching locomotive

drowning out the old weather-band radio’s drone.

I can still feel the strange

pressure that filled my chest and

our house’s groaning protest

as the wind howled in all directions

at once outside the narrow basement window

as if the whole world was tumbling around us.

Then suddenly it stopped.

And there was absolute silence.

We stepped outside into a still photograph of chaos,

Everything turned topsy-turvy but completely tranquil, motionless.

I smelled freshly churned soil and heavy ozone.

Trees were folded in half, roots towering a story high,

huge branches hurled into the neighbor’s house.

On the beach our ski boat had been picked up in its hoist

and set back down again on top of our dock.

At right angles and upside down.

Only the mechanical drone

…This is K-E-C-sixtyfive. Operating at a frequency of One-Sixtytwo-Point-five-five-megahertz…

of the weather band radio broke the stunned silence.

Lake dog pants

in the sun

on a sand pile.

Damp yellow fur,

dirt-caked nose,

one eye closed,

one eye alternates

between

the crusty tennis ball

next to her foot and

three children

playing near shore.

Lake dog pants

in the sun

until the kids wade

too deep in the water.

Then she stands stiffly,

lifts her head and

with one forceful, tender:

bark!

calls them back in shallow.

She wades out ankle deep,

sniffs each child in turn,

wades back

and lays down

on her sand pile

giving one quick lick

to her crusty tennis ball.

Lake dog pants

in the sun

on a sand pile.

Children play near shore.