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Everything Water

Everything Water

Lake Scene and a Cottage
I sat cross-legged in the secret passage 
of the lake cottage sold off five decades ago

Now yachts cruise past
The small dinghies and sailboats
retired to make room for invasive species

The flagpole on the deck is bent   The storage shed
has turned to rot    all gone

When my grandmother caught my sorrow she told me
one day I would understand the waterways

She called it the deepest mystery and showed me
	rainbow trout caught for dinner 

their slender long bodies     reddish pink lines from  gills to tails
	dark blue backs     silver sides      white bellies
          black spots running like pearls along their backs

They swam in the bucket 
         Tight quarters     The willow’s branches grabbed me
	every time I passed it to see the fish

Before my grandmother died she told me her favorite waterway 
was the surf in Maine in mid-summer	    	
She lay in the sand alone as the tide came in 

 I asked which beach and she said 
Just a beach   My beach 
     while tears I thought were pearls ran down her cheeks

Before she died or after
she carried the sand into the deepest sea
where all things wet are protected