Intrusion

Looking for adventure in the wilderness,

the wild that drives us, I am driven to the head

of the lake and turn the bow of my canoe westward there,

the distant shore distantly visible and veiled,

a misty fog lifting, gathering the light, a stage lit.

My old ash paddle, dipping, dripping, a rippling wake

trailing behind, guides me beyond my old weathered

dock, dry and splint’ring in the passing years’

wear and tear of sun and water, extending into the lake.

Here, the water is smooth and the hush of my craft quiet

as it breaks the surface tension, restoring itself behind me

as I move onward, passing now a lone birch that hangs

over Hebron’s edge, lower and lower, year after year,

its leaves just touching the water, tickling it, perhaps,

a child’s soft whisper against my ear, barely heard.

And skirting the last of civilization’s cabins,

I leave behind these summer homes, their chainsaw noise,

and children, swimming, laughing, playing, their toys

scattered, and dogs barking, men, too, barking out to their

broods too eager to listen in the summer heat and freedom.

Just past this last domain, a groomed domicile of lawn

and fresh paint, boats neatly tied and anchored, lies

a cabin shell collapsed upon itself, broken glass and

humanities’ relics rusting, resting – remembering, perhaps,

- one last reminder of our impermanence here where we live

subject to nature’s elements of earth and air, fire and ice,

the seasons turning, spring to summer, autumn to winter.

The shoreline now bends around an unseen cove, revealing

where the wild returns, nature reclaiming itself

with thickening brush and trees grown together, dense,

blocking the sun and my view beyond, a lily pad carpet,

and an osprey’s cry, Red Wing’s flash and the splash

of frogs, water transformed from winter’s stream

rushing to summer’s lake and autumn’s marsh, slowed down.

Below, the rocks lie hidden and flat in the shallows

and caress my keel, a soft thump, or they rise up,

these low mountains of stone, boulders centuries old

lapped by the gentle waves wind-stirred in a breeze

picking up with the sun’s rising higher behind me, warming me.

Suspended, too, in the depth, trout and perch and bass,

where salmon spawned once before, a lake gone fallow,

over-fished and choked by men eager for escape,

answering nature’s call in the noise and oil of modern boats, 
leaking gas, exhaust, and waste and trash discarded too freely.

Port side, now, an expanse of water, rippled and ridged,

an eagle calling, circling, and a loon, white and black,

be-speckled wings, lifts his head and breaks the silence

of the morning, his lonely cry warbling, echo’d from a far off

shore, reminding me of my intrusion, a stern warning

before he slips below the surface and is gone

but for the circles left in his leaving;

what remains is the silence, a hushed hint of a breeze blowing,

what I came for, what we come for, this wild that calls us,

calling us to the head of the lake, again and again, to remind us

who we are and where we belong, here, intruders

allowed to share this space, to glimpse the wilderness

that lies within us, distantly visible and veiled.