The Lake
Take me back and away
Away away away
Way-way, way back
To a boat in a lake
With my mother and father
Way back to a time when we’d flee this life
This life…the life we’d been told
Should be lived some other way…and away we would go
To the calm lake…upon which we’d work hard
To catch fish
Laughing in the attempt
Hardly working
Mostly laughing…and there’d come from within us
A laughter and some stories
Our stories about each other
As we let go
The work of fishing
As the fish let go the work of being caught, for the boat disturbed the water with
its rocking, as laughs and tears came all the same…
And I believe I saw a single fish
As it swam a short distance away, beholding us and the boat, and the rocking, and
the crying and the Laughter
In the now gently, rocking boat…on the calm lake.
Reef
Mate we’ve run upon a jagged reef as the sea moves pastÂ
Like blood from a clotting woundÂ
We dwell fixedÂ
Stuck at a tiltÂ
Our sail empty and twisted on its spar that once held it fullÂ
And once full could take us to those far placesÂ
Imagined nowÂ
OnlyÂ
In fractured minds and hearts gone southÂ
Deep and souredÂ
In doldrums of our own makingÂ
A kind of bargained-for dead calm
For there had been unrest upon the deck ere we cruisedÂ
Had the reef fetched our shipÂ
Or had we beckoned it to appearÂ
To beÂ
Did our captain send an ill-thought signal or did the boatswainÂ
Cross his flags ahead of the windÂ
Did you sailor fall asleep on watch or did I dream this reef to take us allÂ
Could I not go into the sea alone
Tupper Cullum is a Boulder-based actor, writer and musician, who has worked inÂ
Colorado, Los Angeles and New York City for the past 30 years.
Send poetry submissions of 250 words or fewer to [email protected].
