for colleen and her cottage
VWing up the last
hill
downshift to second
turn to dirt roads
tamarack pines in still green water
bank the edge
to let a jeep squeeze by
returning lovers
ride the wind
dinner is a curve away
a glacial dig bore Sylvan Lake
tore from the frigid earth
a shrieking tribute
of frozen dirt and splintering rocks
and left them guardians
of a fertile holy place
filling slowly the bleeding scar
with dying tears
dropping down
and perhaps living there still
at the bottom
where I’ll make you
of poems
where summer will never end
her cottage A-framed cedared
and smelling of fireplaces
summering maple and split pine
burns the night with early desire
coloring books monopoly
and last year’s reader’s digest
late of peter pan land
we never used wires
violently praying for sun
tomorrow
morning green waking sky
early fisherman dance quietly across
a virgin lake
the sun sets on fire
alligator trees
glacial dumps rim Sylvan Lake
hills more green than the deepest water
dropping down
through harsh thermoclines
where I swam searching the bottom
and wasted
bubbled helpless up
to high green against hungry blue
bumpy firelanes patchwork the woods
rolling right to where
the Muskegon cuts a deepdown bed
of scrub pine and barefoot sand
sucking straw-like from weeping hills
sapling spring water
between blue toes
and into oxbent currents
then running even farther
along the smiling ridge
walking—
barefeet in sinking sand
up hiking hills
synagogue green,
cycle ruts
narrow path through high pines
battling an invasion of mosquitos
till the next patch of sun
walking—
till we reach the highway
snowmobile runs on the other side
dune buggies—
whine
and disappear
then heading back
for a swim before lunch
barefeet sinking
in warm asphalt
frowning smiles
brown and beautiful
swimming towards me
hair that begs summer sun
and laughing eyes
that I love to poem
jeep trails walk the deep forests
even at sunset
when railroad tracks and rushing sky
couple by the altar green
mounting the moon
by mosquito light
and moaning out the summer heat
while we search for five pennies
that the six o’clock from Muskegon
has given a new life
sunset sliding
through alligator hills
evening gathers across the lake
walking to the bridge
we are as quiet as sleeping children