Opening up the Camp

The distant sounds of electric drills

and screw drivers, chains saws,

circular saws, and a slamming door

reverberate around the lake, and the steady

pounding of nails, an occasional “damn”

heard over a nail bent or a thumb smashed

in an errant swing of a hammer;

the faint smell, too, of wood smoke rises

from burning brush and fallen limbs, cleared,

wood stoves stoked after months of dormancy,

all letting us know, each of us, that summer

is nearer, much nearer than the early

melting of snow and the ice groaning

dark, the hush of brooks and streams rushing

with the seasons’ changing. The ducks

and loon and beaver are now returning,

and the seasonal folks, too, who, like me,

are opening up the camp

and readying ourselves for summer.