Lake.

I've been missing lately. Out in the world. Up on a lake. Safe in a cabin, holding my breath under clear water, at a stained picnic table beneath a Buckeye tree with green Buckeye shells--they prick you to protect themselves, but when they fall we collect them and proclaim them treasures.

In this place: there is a hard hat in a shed with a spare key. My two keys are the best keys on my chain; I treasure them; they grant me access, allowance, to this place. Lucky soul. Lucky fish.

A few times it has frozen over, the whole body of water, but not in my remembered lifetime. (The sound a freezing lake makes, do I know it? Like ping ping ping. Out and out. All directions. Sheets of crystals wedded, married, holding on tight, relentless.)

The care given is relentless because: us, too. We're married to the place. We've given it our solemn promise. Much as it makes us snipe and gossip. Much as it makes us work. We'll work for it. I'll work for you. Promise, promise. Mow your orchard grasses, grown tall. Pluck your fruits with stained fingers and bless you, thank you, for what you offer. Sweep your floors, wipe your counters clean, move away your old growth, burn it up and tend the fire until my lashes are singed and my cheeks hold your heat. For you, this I will do. I promise.

In a good winter you let us in. Waters wild and moving. No freezing. Just churning cold. When I am with you, I am a girl alive. Every single limb alive. Every single cell getting deliberate about living.

We walked your road, slick with ice, dusty with summer. Then, our footsteps matched. We wanted them to match, then. Now I walk the road alone, but beside me there are other people, there are all the people I've ever walked beside. They're talking still and they don't see me, but I see them. They walk your road. They'll be walking there forever.

You couldn't have told us what was coming. You couldn't have said: careful. You could only have said: keep walking. And that's enough.




Thanks for reading.


Beth