Putting the Canoe Away

Today, it’s time to pull the canoe from the lake, store it away for the coming winter months, our travels over, our travels done, trips alone to the head of the lake finished, for now, for this season. The ice is forming around the edges of the lake, the nights below freezing, the temperatures dropping, staying low, too cold now, the ice melting in the morning sun, reforming again in the dark of night, reclaiming itself. And the hours of light, the time on the lake, are shrinking, too, the morning smoothness of the water whipped to white caps with the rising wind, keeping me land-bound, off the lake, fearing, as I do, capsizing in my inattentiveness, my attention elsewhere along the shore or skyward following the eagle’s flight, my ears attuned to his cry calling out, or, drawn back to earth, watching winter settling in at the lake, nature preparing itself for the dormant months ahead, the beavers patching their huts, fortified against the winter cold, squirrels foraging for food to store away from the approaching snow’s cover, and the geese, rising from the lake to renew their trip southward, responding, as we all must respond, to this cycle of nature.

On the bank, the canoe, responding, lies dormant itself, where I left it, leaving it close to the water’s edge for an autumn’s journey when Indian Summer grants me a few hours of sunshine’s warmth and calm water or when the lake calls out to me, speaks to me in her silence calling, and I launch, paddle dipping, pulling, moving me into the lake, into her solitude, into myself when the clutter of my life needs clearing out, my mind and spirit needing renewal. But today, the canoe lies dormant, UMSKEE dulled white on green, upside down, listing to one side, as tired as I this day, perhaps, listing myself, ready for winter’s rest ahead. So I right her, keel flat, and drag her toward the porch, the door below agape, a winter yawn, to store her there, upside down once more to keep the squirrels from making it a home, a winter nest of fur and thatch, though I shouldn’t mind if they did crawl under the seats there or into the small spaces in the bow and stern and turn it into a winter home, winter’s nest. We all need a safe place away from the cold and wind, a safe place away from the winter storms of our lives, just as I crawl up the stairs to my den, safe and warm while the blizzards howl around me, rattling my windows and doors.

And closing the door, the canoe safely stored, locked away for the season ahead, I look once more to the lake, the ice still frozen along the shore’s edge this early morning, white against the black of autumn’s water, and the eagle’s piercing cry echoing in the still air aloft draws me to the other shore, to the tree he has nested in these summer months gone by, months gone by since I arrived at the lake, launched my canoe and journeyed west to the head of the lake, he and I both, journeying alone. He stretches out his great wings, lifting off, his figure stark against the azure sky made richer by the chill air, and begins his winter journey even as I begin mine, each of us going wherever it is that eagles go, wherever it is that eagles fly.