Weekdays

Weekdays here at the Lake, summertime,

before the weekenders arrive with their power boats

and jet skis and their little boats’ early morning puttering

to the head of the lake where the best fishing is purported to be,

and with their late-night revelries and conversations carried across

the water to those of us uninvited, very loud and very clear,

are peaceful, quiet for those of us who live here with our kayaks and canoes

hugging the shallow shorelines looking for moose and deer, listening

to the loons with their newly hatched chicks warning us away,

luring us from the nest and nursery, or maybe catching sight of the beaver

and otter and the eagle, his eagle eye watching us watching,

waiting for him to swoop low or soar above us, bobbing here

in the shade of an overhanging tree; evenings we gather at the fire pit,

wine in hand, dodging the smoke blown lightly into our faces,

our conversations low, like the sun setting, orange and pink in the darkening

blue of the night sky, a breeze stirring, carrying the bark of a neighbor’s dog,

or our own, and the echoes’ returning broken by a lone loon warbling, yodeling,

calling out, and reminding us of the peace of living here, surrounded

by that which we cannot understand, yet only truly appreciate

in the slowed later years of our lives, weekdays, here at the Lake.