Nostalgia (The Lake at Night)
The black water.
Lights dotting the entire perimeter.
Their shaky reflections.
The dark tree line.
The plap-plapping of water around the pier.
Creaking boats.
The creaking pier.
Voices in conversation, in discussion—two men, adults—serious inflections
(the words themselves just out of reach).
A rusty screen-door spring, then the door swinging shut.
Footsteps on a porch, the scrape of a wooden chair.
Footsteps shuffling through sand, animated youthful voices (how many?)— distinct, disappearing.
A sudden guffaw; some giggles; a woman’s—no, a young girl’s—sarcastic reply; someone’s assertion; a high-pitched male cackle.
Somewhere else a child laughing.
Bug-zappers.
Tires whirring along a pavement... not stopping ... receding.
Shadows from passing headlights.
A cat’s eyes caught in a headlight.
No moon.
Connect-the-dot constellations filling the black sky—the ladle of the Big Dipper not quite directly overhead.
The radio tower across the lake, signaling.
Muffled quacking near the shore; a frog belching; crickets, cicadas, katydids, etc.—their relentless sexual messages.
A sudden gust of wind.
Branches brushing against each other—pine, beech.
A fiberglass hull tapping against the dock.
A sudden chill.
The smell of smoke, woodstove fires.
A light going out.
A dog barking; then more barking from another part of the lake.
A burst of quiet laughter.
Someone in the distance calling someone too loud.
Steps on a creaking porch.
A screen-door spring, the door banging shut.
Another light going out (you must have just undressed for bed).
My bare feet on the splintery pier turning away from the water.
Copyright Credit: Lloyd Schwartz, "Nostalgia (The Lake at Night)" from Cairo Traffic. Copyright © 2000 by Lloyd Schwartz. Reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
Source: Cairo Traffic (The University of Chicago Press, 2000)