Given Ground

Echo Lake, Plymouth, Ludlow, Vermont, originally uploaded by luanyoung.

 by D. Hart
--for my Dad

What we need, you and I, are tall pines.
Tall pines and a cold Vermont lake.  Copper wisps carpet granite
Outcroppings to the shore.  We sway and talk, in the pool
To our knees.  We like this and the water we lick from our fingers.
It tastes, more than anything, green.
We laugh and the ducks snicker with us, Hah Hah Hah.

Later, long, preposterous cries detach the hush from the dusk.
In our cabin beds, we lie there listening. 
Listening, always, for the loons.

(D. Hart is a writer, poet and artist in Minneapolis, Minn.)