By the shores of an alpine lake Newly thawed Sun bright and full of an early summer’s Hopefulness I watch the goslings waddle To the lapping edge of the water.
Their mother eyes me, but Notes that I am Not a threat.
And I am not a threat.
I tell her softly that she should pass And I will not throw rocks Or chase her off Like so many do As if we have some greater claim to this Blue lake And the evergreen forests That surround it Than all of the wild things that quietly adjust their days, Trace a slightly wider arc, Around the cacophonous noise we make,
Before slipping quickly up, up and away Into the thickness of a wilderness Rife with ponderosa pines And a crisp silence Broken only by the wind And the bird songs That are the first to speak Of the winter’s end.
And I prefer to listen And look often To the farthest contours of the foothills against the sky, Borne away from even my own voice that Seems to demean the purity of things Free and Wild.
And time, A gentle drifting Like a body on the surface of the lake Drawn out to the center when The tide is just right Pulls me away from these cities we make Inside our minds To justify the way we think our lives Mean more than hers;
Just a mother leading her young ones to take a drink,
And I will never stop her;
The spirit of honest things.
No, I hand her my heart to take to the center of this blue lake And let it sink like a rock to the dark, Cool depths where it belongs,