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,

From whence it came.