Lakeside

Sometimes the wind

wins out and waves

carry light

in the form of knives

Then it is blade against blade,

steel against steel

and glorious sparks.

And a loon floats by, slowly,

almost as if a still life,

excruciatingly slow,

like the wait for love,

a mother’s or a father’s,

their painful lives long over,

and it keeps to itself

its echoed black ring,

its distinctive cry, its laughter.

*

From “The Bluestone Walk” by Edward Nobles (Persea Books: 86 pp., $14)