when the lake is still and hushed,
like a child in wonder.
All is silent except the wind
in the trees,
and I wonder if I am alone in the world.
But ah, the loon gives her crazy call and I know I am
joined
by at least one.
Solitude does not last long – or does it? –
for from my spot
on the porch
I soon hear the cabin rustling to life.
Sister creaking down the stairs from our shared bedroom
in the loft.
Dogs nails clicking on the wooden floors.
Door thrown open
as someone treks to the john.
Murmured good mornings.
Stretching.
The lake awakens with the cabin.
An errant breeze ripples the silky surface.
A seagull lands
jauntily
on our floating dock.
A boat motors across the lake,
out for an early morning fish.
I pause
from my reading
and look up to see the sun breaking
through the clouds
over Alligear’s Bay.
This Green
Lake morning is slipping into a Green Lake day.
A Green Lake day is not confined
by the constraints of time.
Oh, time passes, sure,
but here it’s not measured
in hours or minutes.
We’ve no clock, see.
The day ambles on,
and it’s quite freeing – though at first perhaps
unsettling –
to not know
that now it’s noon and so we must eat lunch.
canoe to the island
swim off the cliffs
rig up a worm and fish from shore
Go ahead.
Do what you like.
The day is yours, after all, and not the clock’s.
It doesn’t matter when you eat
or for how long you nap
or if you read all day in a paint-peeled rocker on the
porch.
One thing is certain, though.
Boats launch
at sunset.
I always sit in the point of the Alumacraft
my dad, the captain, at the helm.
We might troll Dead Head Alley,
pretending to be a school of hook-laced minnows,
or maybe we try casting jitterbugs at the inlet.
As our hands get cold on the reels
and our feet slosh in water at the bottom of the boat,
we point her toward a faint light across the bay
and are cabin bound.
Time for a Green Lake night.
A Green Lake night means
laughter
on the porch
as stories are traded,
retold,
exaggerated.
The clink of bottles
Maybe we’ll have a fire.
We tend to the insatiable flames and
alternately look skyward.
We see the stars as we see them only up here.
The sky looks like silver paint splattered
on a blue-black canvas.
The number of stars is staggering, really,
with no man-made lights to rival their twinkling.
Sometimes, instead,
we play cards
at the table
by the rosy glow from an ancient oil lamp.
We pound the table when someone scoops
a trick with Big Ben.
And we laugh.
And eat crackers and cheese
And the brave ones
try ‘dines.
After good nights are said,
I slip into my bed
under the crazy quilts Grandma made
years ago.
Flashlights click off
as the cabin settles.
I close my eyes
and then open them
but it makes no difference,
the darkness is absolute.
My eyes close
not to open again until it’s time for
another Green Lake Morning
