Final Evening at Oxbrook Camp
By Sydney Lea
Our loons still scull on the pewter
calm of the lake, the chick having dodged
the eagle one more day.
The valorous drake and hen both held it
between their bodies while the raptor circled.
Reprieve. And here I am, old.
I stooped an hour ago
to dump the pail of dace I'd trapped,
then watched them scatter, the ones
we hadn't hooked through their dorsals for bait.
Twenty or so now swim at large—
still prey, but not to us,
Who are headed home in the morning.
I’m poised to throw away this clutch
of wilting black-eyed Susans
picked wild by my wife of all these years
to grace our painted metal table,
where we lifted ladders of spine
from fat white perch, last supper.
So here I am, this aging man
who wants somehow to write
only one love song after another.
I pause at dusk, I blink, I toss
Our dim bouquet into late summer’s woods.
Copyright Credit: Sydney Lea, "Final Evening at Oxbrook Camp" from No Doubt the Nameless. Copyright © 2016 by Sydney Lea. Reprinted by permission of Four Way Books, www.fourwaybooks.com.
Source: No Doubt the Nameless (Four Way Books, 2016)