Thursday Poem - Night Falling

Out on the lake alone in my canoe, an hour
before the light has fallen away, there's a fiery sun
above me, cool dusky waters and hidden depths
below. I make my way along the shore and its
guardian cliffs, a patient observer of evening
unfolding, these timeless oscillating rites of
rising light and slowly descending darkness.

A great heron moves though the shallows,
and mallard ducks assemble on the shoreline,
somewhere a loon laughs on a hidden bay.
My paddle moves of its own accord through
the ripples and every drop falling away from it
is a flame, a sparkling union holding fire in its
heart and thoughts of other paddlings here -
evening sun, shadowed trees and distant stars,
a lone woman in her battered canoe at twilight,
the earth and dappled waves conjoined.

It's an unfinished conversation of sorts, the
drops falling away from my paddle forming
trailing dots and small silences in a dialogue
with its roots in the past and its end resting
easy on the quiet water somewhere up ahead.
Who knows such things with any certainty?
Lake and landscape are telling tales this
evening, but they seldom speak in words.

Cate (kerrdelune)