Artful Wake

I love the wake my canoe makes

gliding out across the lake

these early mornings when the water

is calm and smooth, reflecting the sky

and the shore surrounding, reflecting me.

My paddle breaks the surface and folds

the water back on itself, a slight arc

rippling in my trail, the soft hush

of wood caressing water like sand

brushed back by a tidal pull.

Behind me, the water closes in, smooths

itself once again and erases the path

I leave behind even as I lift my paddle

to repeat this rhythm of careful strokes,

tiny droplets shimmering on its edge

or falling back like rain, an inaudible splash

lightly heard in the silence of this early morning,

propelling myself softly, calmly, gliding

out across the lake, reflected and reflecting:

Narcissus’ soul transformed, alive in nature. 

Granddaughters

Naked Barbie dolls are strewn about, their clothes

piled here and there, and nearly naked themselves,

content and oblivious, they play together on the floor,

calling to me to “play Barbie,” too.

After lunch, the pool, shallow with a few inches

of water, is quickly reduced to almost empty,

fresh cut grass skimming the top and clinging

to arms and legs and little bodies splashing, giggling.

Bedtime’s promise of the zoo quiets them, finally,

but we rise early, load the car with toys -

necessities - and spend our day, napless,

too excited, pushed and pulled through animal’d

trails and round and round on the carousel,

holding tight or held secure; they fall asleep

within minutes of leaving, tightly strapped in

and quiet, Rainbow Puppies clutched close and worn.

It was so much easier then, before life

enveloped them and took them in,

took them away, leaving me alone, round

and round on the carousel, holding tight now

to the memories and dreams of granddaughters

growing up, moving from toys and trips

and carousels, Cinderella Castle Balls,

to the young women they have become.

A Blessing

We pitched our tent and built a fire,

settled in for the night, just a short hike

down this broad swath cut into the forest

to string lines of communication through,

lines to points of civilization further north

from points further south from whence we’d journeyed,

three boys off to climb a mountain

“because it was there” and we never had

and we wanted to. What did we know

of needing reservations and crowds of other boys

as eager to climb Katahdin as we were?

What did we know of private land cut through the forest;

there were no signs posted, no warnings of illegal acts,

so we pitched our tent for want of a place to sleep

and a mountain to climb, undeterred and determined.

Night darkened as dusk turned to dark

and dark to darker still, as we ate in silence,

simple food from cans keyed open, hiding our fears.

Above us was the moonless sky and a swath of darkness,

a moonless trail itself, pebbled with stars

we stumbled over, as youth do on the dark path

to the loftier heights that is their goal,

that is their lives, other mountains still to be climbed

beyond this one that lay before us.

And as if to acknowledge our intrusion,

our foray into nature’s realm, small as we were,

the sky became alive with the Aurora Borealis’ glow,

these Northern Lights rarely seen by boys,

particles charged and charging the night sky,

giving life and light to illuminate us and our way,

alive and pulsing and reaching out to us

about to conquer, not just Katahdin’s peak,

but ourselves on a darkened trail stumbling:

a blessing, perhaps, on our youth,

our youth disappearing into adulthood,

disappearing into ourselves, alone and afraid.

Tenderness

It began with name calling

at elementary school, “Smarty-Pants”,

“Goody-Goody,” simple, derogatory terms mutating

over the months and years to harsher terms,

more derogatory, hurtful, hateful terms

and personal attacks because, well,

because others were using them,

and their friends, too, so you had to,

to fit in, unaware of the pain of the jokes

you didn’t understand, pain you didn’t feel.

And even when you did understand, years later,

in middle school, and later still, high school,

where fitting in was much more important,

it morphed to the meanness of high school cruelty

where she was told it was only the drama of high school

students’ interacting, part of growing up,

this high school drama, and the unintended bullying

of teachers, “deal with it,” and adults,

who don’t understand, who forgot the pain

of dealing with it. It all lacks feeling, this fear,

this pain of living, even the pain of a bladed edge digging

through tender flesh just to feel something, anything

real and tangible, a pain she deserved found in self-esteem

gone shallow, undeserving of little else but this.

And there’s no one there to understand the needs

she won’t disclose because they can’t be met, “never”

in a world begun with a single name called

that she carries with her, anxious and afraid,

longing only for what she could have, could be

if someone understood her enough to end the pain, the drama,

and replace it with love, the love she can’t feel now,

or know. This love is sharper than any bladed edge,

a love to make her feel the worth she’s always had,

a worth hidden by an unkind word said in ignorance

and isolation in the halls of a school building

set in her past, a setting she can’t escape

without the love or understanding she can’t find,

this blade that will keep her alive, cutting through her fear

to the tenderness hidden within that longs to come out,

that says “this is me … love me … just as I am.”