Poems

Dory stowed with field glasses, thermos of coffee, Grandad’s wicker creel,

cuts of bread and New York cheddar. We’ve duffel-stashed a summer here

beside the pail we heft to bail our worries. Oars we’ve renamed Saturday,

Sunday. We favor them each morning. To lose one day of this eternity

(the wind across Lake George), too heavy for my small pail, the thought.

I look up. Sails of neighbors stretch. A bowrider churns a wake; paddlers

wave from kayak quiet. Jacques and Madeleine shout from paddleboards.

The work some call preserving, a reckoning: anchor, keel, trailer wheel.

A compass bids me on. It’s time. It's time to dip and pull the oars.