Search for the Plesiosaur
“It doesn’t take much for a
creature
to become a monster,”
he informs me,
tossing stones into shallow
water.
“But it takes even less to
bring them back.
They just have to know you love them.”
They just have to know you love them.”
So we walk the sandy parts of
the lake’s shore,
the wooded ones,
the bouldered coves,
the train tracks
sprouted with summer wildflowers.
We paddle out by kayak,
sprouted with summer wildflowers.
We paddle out by kayak,
take the ferry roundtrip
across the narrow neck of the
lake,
linger at the apex of the
arched bridge
between New York and Vermont.
I buy a second ice cream
cone.
In case we find him.
In case we find him.
In case he likes ice cream.
The time passes with comments on newness--
the peculiar flowers that seem to live just here,
The time passes with comments on newness--
the peculiar flowers that seem to live just here,
the feel of cold, fresh lake
water
under the layer warmed by the
summer sun,
vistas with mountains whose
names we don’t know,
the way we can see rain clouds moving in
from so far away.
the way we can see rain clouds moving in
from so far away.
I have no way to tell him,
eight years old,
that I’ve been here before,
and not once.
This is where all the trouble
starts—
searching for a monster
with a tender heart.
