Canoe and Cranes

The bow of the canoe is laden with water

Autumn rain having fallen the night before.

I bail four or five gallons out

From the slanting hull

That points toward the wind ruffled lake.

On the distant shore, the trees are on fire.

I shove off and drift a moment,

Taking in the gentle rock of the broad beam

On wavelets

Where the light glitter dances across the water.

Water so shallow I push off the bottom,

Gondolier on a big pond,

Sand and muck and weeds,

Till I reach the deeper water,

Deep like prayer at midnight,

Dark and still.

Left side, left side

Right side, right side

Metronomic, the paddle blade

Thrusts aside the water

Trailing diamonds off its tip,

Gentle arpeggios of droplets

Scattering ripples in my wake.

The swans,

Cob, pen and cygnet

Trail me for a few moments

And then turn tail toward the west

And home or to find sustenance

In pondweed, stonewort, wigeon grass,

Who can say.

I stroke for the far shore,

Taking in the fading cattails,

The blazing maples,

And blink at the dazzle on the water

 

At the southern shore shallow water

And the sandy bottom emerges again

Sandhill cranes standing still

And some

With a sudden thrust of broad wings

Leap to the air

Others

Eye me with some caution or curiosity

Who can say

And stalk away on stilts through the shallows

Once only a pair graced this little lake

But after five rounds of the sun

Now a good four dozen

Bring in the morning with clattering calls across flat water

Maybe naming the clouds or the younglings

Or the reeds and cattails

Who can say. 

Turning back, eventually

When my arms began to burn,

The breeze comes up and

The shallow aluminum hull

Thrums like a bowed string and

Swings ninety

Before I can compensate.

the wind takes the left side

And I the right, picking a point on shore

And dipping into the water

When the bow swings starboard

It’s harder than it sounds,

Given no keel,

This beamy boat is slave to any zephyr.

Back in shallow water

I shove hard till the bow

Noses onto the grass

And I drag it up from the shore

Until another time.