Standing in the gravel on the old orchard road
You can see the whole county
The shoreline jutting outward
And twisting inward
Endlessly
Enshrining the lakeside houses
With their walls of shining windows
And the pristine docks that stretch out into the shallows
I often thought
Who would leave such a place
But I left this place years ago
To busy among the creaks and rattles of an urban empire
I come back here sometimes
To stand along the roadside
And squint out against the glowing meridian
That was once an untold perimeter
To the dreams that were swept among these hills
To the aches that shifted anxiously
In my legs when I heard you speak
In the summer we would pile into your family’s cabin cruiser
And trace circles around the empty island
Whose overgrowth would pull the late sun
Into shadow
Like the evening when we hid under the fruit tree
Faces pressed close
Listening to the joyous cries darting among the rows
And I waited
Too long
Until I was sitting alone in the darkened thicket
Your family sold that boat
When the boys and girls no longer came back fill it
Or offered young arms to carry the sections of dock
From the shore each season
You left this place
And moved to a city where there was no water in sight
Only mountains to surround you in their boldness
And red earth to coat your bare feet
They say that millennia ago
All of this land was carved by glaciers
A long and crucial process
Pounding with unimaginable force
Each slope and curve
A surging momentum
Across time
To spread
The cool sand beneath our feet
And wrap us in a gentle cove
Of sweet smells and quiet tempers
Now
Standing in the gravel on the old orchard road
I stare far across the bays
From the cracks beside my eyes
Breathing deep the final moments
As the afterglow dims
And think
Who would leave such a place
Knowing that
In the morning I’ll be gone again.
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