Because I didn’t want to miss the last
of the early wildflowers,
and because it was such a perfect, blue-sky day,
and because I knew the lake surface would run
to cobalt under that sky,
and, suspecting that the water would be
quite high, which it was,

I made my way to the lake I still think of
as mine, a folder of stories tucked under my arm,
imagining that I would sit in the spring breeze
under the shade of a white willow tree
near the waterline, get some work done.

But there were two boys at the lip
of sand and shore attempting to cast a line,
and a woman with three dogs heading
for a point to the north that I love.

And on the lake, a motorboat droning
a familiar hum zoomed toward the dam
as two riders on horseback meandered
across the sand, a dog leading the way,
as if summoned for a photo.

And when I finally found a place to sit
under that willow, I heard but did not see
a fish jump in the shallows,

and one of the boys, who had put down
his pole, walked the shoreline with
a confident stride much older than his years,
ankle-deep in my lake that is now his, too,
off to go see what he could see.