I choose the lake front property for its 206 feet of beach.
All that rocky frontage right on the water.
Protected from sun by old growth trees, naturalized vegetation.
Dropping off quickly and steeply, there are no shallows.
We can dive off the dock. Mooring the boat to the dock
all season long, the motors prop won’t hit bottom.
Water is always my escape,
my corporeal freedom,
my valium.
Summer evening suppers at the picnic table.
Skinny dipping for a bath when night falls.
Air cool, water warm.
Moonlight making our flesh glow white.
Scuba diving and snorkeling from the dock
open worlds of exploration and discovery.
When the water turns cold and eventually solid,
we ice fish through the knobby hard blue surface.
Snowmobiles carve tracks in the top crust
facilitating cross country skiing.
Snowshoeing on a fresh powdery surface
is winter water at its most agreeable.
In Spring when ice begins to melt, tradition requires
we take bets on what day the lake will run free.
Before that happens, nature and water together
become fearsome and dangerous.
Car-sized blocks of ice stacking up
one after another on the shore form battlements.
The power of massive blocks of ice
being moved by wind and wave action
is impossible to understand unless you witness the floe.
This power is mesmerizing. I watch as ice boulders begin
ripping at the beach stairway I’m standing on
while my husband screams at me
to get back up to the high ground.
Water is my life force.