The Lake

 

The lake is a place to be with friends

Having a nap

Making love to an apparition

 

The lake is a place where you remember tragedies

Your own and those of others

Little sisters of brothers who came later

And mothers Down Under

 

The lake is a place where you make love

To a dream turned nightmare

Woodsy woman in a robe of autumn leaves

Children hidden under there

 

The lake is a place

To bake a cake

Company’s coming!

Goodness sake!

 

Visitor frenzy!

Woman I knew

Walking slow

On snow that’s new

 

I reach out to touch her face

Suddenly gone that autumn gown

Gone with not a single trace

Almost five, sun’s goin’ down

 

Back and forth ‘cross the lake she drifts

Then winter swallows her

Nevermore to be, just mist

Rising from a patch of open water

 

The lake is a place where you wake from your sleep

As friends leave the cabin, pair by pair

For a walk in the woods

Or along the lakeshore there

 

This was written the last weekend before I came to CityTeam. Lloyd and Kathy Penner, Pam and Gord Moore and I in a cabin beside a frozen lake in Ontario.

 

Beautiful winter days, cold, sun shining, casting long shadows over the frozen lake.

This is leap year, the 4th anniversary of Diane’s death. She died

February 29, 2004. Death by drowning in the undertow of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Guatemala.

 

When Diane was still here, before she disappeared into the past

We six good friends went on many excursions

      -some by lakes

      -some by rivers

      -some by streams

      -some in dreams

 

Six people lying in the grass, looking up and finding castles in the clouds.

Now just five.

 

February 5, 2008

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