A Night at Dildo Run

 

A power boat thrums across the lake

and then is gone with the sun, the pink

edges of clouds polishing the water gun-metal grey

above the gentle heartbeat of its lapping.

 

Three campsites down a child calls for his mother.

The mountains swallow his cry, for they have heard

all the children come and go;

children of The People who walked across the ice,

children of exiles who feared the open sea,

children of plunderers who came as gods.

Some left when the sun drove out the seals,

some were killed or chased away,

some fought each other to own the land.

 

Dark shapes sleep inches under my feet;

bones, shells, scraps of iron, pilfered

for second use, or fashioned from the red bog,

(Who now can make a nail from earth to mend a boat?) -

their whispers shimmer like northern lights.

 

And now I am here, swatting mosquitoes in the dark,

and trying to spark a fire with a barbecue lighter and wet tinder

as they might have done with their fire stones,

while rock, wood, and water

stand silent against the risen moon,

and you are thousands of miles away

sending an e-mail into the void

to ask where I am and perhaps whom I am with.

 Don’t worry, my dear. I am in the company of ghosts.

                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~