You tell me year after year that

you go for the loons. The Common Loon who

calls and lures you with her tender, forlorn

plea. Every trip you come back with a new 

tribute, a story of how the loons sang

to you, secrets discovered.

Your canoe shushes through the gentle waters.

Thoughts placated and eased into silence.

Your mind lush with honest open space now. Your

eyes free to absorb without

seeing through the  mask of prearranged thoughts and

predetermined landscapes.

One year, a storm came up so fast on the lake, you

could have drowned, you said. Abruptly your arm and thigh

muscles were exacted and compelled to exert more

force and potency than you believed you possessed.

You fought to live, to endure. (And proved that you wanted to.)

Again and again you relived that near-death story. Each time

nature became more a collaborator than opponent.

Every trip, every year she gives you precisely

what you need her to.