My Lake Muse: The Idaho in Me

I used to write poetry. Some of it was marginally good. Some dear souls have told me it was better than marginally good, but I have my doubts. I haven't written much poetry the past few years. I've written some to the boys on their birthdays that I will share with them one day, and I used to write a poem each year on my birthday, but that's about it. I miss it. (I did write and share this poem about not writing poetry a couple years ago.)

Today we returned from our Independence Day week at Smith Mountain Lake. There's just something about a lake that brings out whatever is left of the poet in me. One morning I woke before my loud, vacationing monsters and had my coffee in solitary silence as the lake woke up. I was thinking about Idaho, because most of my childhood Fourths of July were spent on Coeur d'Alene Lake at my grandparents' house. The smells and sounds and sights of the two most influential-to-me Idaho places came back to me there on the front porch overlooking the lake. And I managed to not only write them down, but to revise them, and keep the folded-up piece of paper safely stowed in my suitcase until we got home.

The Idaho in Me

When I’m dead and

gone

I want someone who loved me

to read this and

feel

the thick chill of spring mornings

on West Hatter Creek

as the day crept

silently across the gravel,

the packed dirt.

As sunshine summoned mist,

that army of tiny, connected apparitions,

up and up

from their night on the rocks,

on the patchy grass,

the weeds.

From the stately purple Irises

guarding the

wet black

mailbox.

I want someone I love to

hear

the similar but different

hum of summer mornings

on Bloomsburg Bay

as sun polished the

glass of the

uninterrupted lake.

As beach waves

nibbled

impatiently

at the pebbly sand.

As motor boats drew

small, disheveled sleepers like me

back to yesterday’s games

of tag and make-believe

under secrets of the

cherry tree leaves.

These are my quiet

mornings of the

Idaho

in me

and I want

you

to know them too.

My boating boys this weekend