My Pretty Drummer Friend

Before they left, the clouds dropped

jewels in the lake.

Hidden among the fish and ashes,

the dead,

floating wood, deservedly deserted,

was her heart.

And then one day she announced her perfection to me,

over instant coffee.

Each of her waves became 
curves in my own journey.

As they crashed early on her shores,

I counted the them.

As they greeted me, one by one,

each wave's story had it's own ending.

*****************************************

Now I watch her daily in the same way I breathe.

I've come to know her, as she has known me, 
since my feet were no bigger than her smallest pebbles. 

On some days she feels my tears drop onto her edges,

filling her more and more, with salty sorrow.

She inhales lifelong desires thrown into campfires,

sees the unfinished dreams discarded into the wind over her.

She breathes me to sleep under stars on first warm nights,

I lay on her sands.


She saw my first kiss.
She saw my saddest goodbye.
She held my first child and rocked it to sleep. 
She saw my life turned upside down more than once,
 and somehow, she helped me put it back upright again. 

She wishes me peace.

She shares with me simplicity.

She gathers us all in her arms, floats our mid-drifts,

belly laughs on summer days.

People come from all around 

and act like they know her,and know her moods. 
They mistake her for shallow, perhaps even vane. 
Confidently in their march on sand, they let their children play, 
Yet helpless to her own gravity she is forced to swallow
precious life and floating wood all the same. 

She takes the blame

when we don't know how to respect her.

In winter, resting on cold, she becomes it,

while holding her jewels in places perfect in time.

She holds the land together

as if it might crack as we rumble about.

In long dark days we stomp around as she lies down.

In the cold, she is thick and still

and I am thin and restless.

She receives the melted sun and rebuilds it for tomorrow.

She raises it back up to grow our tomatoes,

our little bobbing butter ball babies.

She brings down my fury, 

slows my race, so I can see her sparkle
 like champagne spilled on glass, 
as far as the eye can see
especially around dinnertime.

As storms invade our space, 

I inhale the smell of the fear of the storm as she stands as my shelter.
And I believe in her. 

They are dumping poison into her,

rings around their ankles,

wading cowardly from land.

What's done to her upsets a feminine rhythm,

Huron's mighty drum.

So delicate and vulnerable, quiet and calm,

yet she roars, waves crash,

topple cabins of guilt

built on cliffs

never meant to be negotiated.

Her power eliminates the tiny empathetic kites

I used to fly at water's edge.

She bangs consistently,

despite what they've done. 

Jets her jewels at me to collect,

take them home

and relive the days of summer.
I wear her around my neck, on my skin and in my hair.

In her perfection

she is bountiful and seemingly endless.

As am I, she says. 

She is whispering of a lifelong friendship

between the two of us.