Just hang a left and pavement turns to mud and keeps them out

All except the most hardy

The most in need of peace

I pass the chained-off track to the pond

and I’m almost home

I’m almost to my first and only all-mine place to be

The timbers soar towards the chilly sky

 

I am remembering

Because I can’t see all that with my eyes from here,

 under these quilts

But I know it well.

I fly, mind up,

soar over the tree tops circling the water,

smell the deep new green of leaves unfurling,

peer into the old brown cattails

scan the depths from dark green to the  yellow of sandbars just under the ripples

 

I have swum, paddled, and circumlocated this body of spring-fed water

Peed in the moss, muddied my boots, thrashed through the underbrush

And will get to know it even better

To know its every edge, curve, inhabitants of the seasons

It’s why I chose my land, my place to build, to sink in.

The closest I could get to the clean water and no car will be needed

Walking to it,

Rolling on bike tires to it

Sliding on skis to it

Slipping, carefully treading ice and slush to it

 

Winter ice doesn’t t bother me

I long to see the feathery tendrils creep and claim the surface

wait until it supports me

Testing its edges as faults crack and black streams wind through it

I gaze and swoosh across with the wind