I once overheard a conversation about people killing trees to get a better view of the water from their summer houses. I once spent a perfect weekend on Squam Lake. I saw loons and thought of Thoreau. I am not an old person, but some day I will be old.
Lake View There is a town ordinance against cutting down trees, so the locals drive metal spikes into the heartwood and let time work, let slow poison leech into fragile memory through rings and snowdrifts and windstorms back to when winter thaws brought a kind of hope and cold snaps drew privates tight with fear, a delirious icy fear that limbs would fail and this one would be the last. The gods stared down jealous then. Who could be so alive, so vibrant with hidden life, so bold with the power of supple wood? But arms become weary and branches drop. The lake grows and the mind addles. We are an ancient relative always in the way, means well, but sighs and trembles, forgets where he is supposed to be and has stopped searching for the pain, that searing in the lower back that radiates through a body like hot iron and is forgotten as a pair of loons glide slowly across the cold grey water.Lake View: A Poem About Growing Old
10 Wednesday Jul 2013
Posted Poetry
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