Sylvan Lake

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

 

 

morning is a sleep away

a sweet roll and a cup of tea

 

tonight’s logs

will build tomorrow’s fire

 

the lake      the sky      the hills

will be there   to start again

 

dawn will pull them through

 

 

midnight fire

at lake’s edge

red coals glow the sand

 

burning

an inner light

between us

 

 

Sylvan Lake Afterword