Men in Siuts

Far from hear men in suits carry out the staggering business of men in suits. while we sit on cabin porches, watch ospreys ride invisible gusts and lake cattails underachieve, the smooth punctuation of each wave awakens us to our selves. Camp is bunk bed and barn. H-dock and trail, sleek houses in the corral who don’t care if we ride them or not. I wouldn’t trade a ghost story at thunder point for a thousand sophisticated magazines, and I don’t imagine you would either. Is there anything as true as sunlit spider webs on the bales in the archery range? Tamarack and oak, Indian paintbrush and goldenrod. So what if polar bears don’t really swim precisely at seven a.m. we do and know the mist of the water much like the veil the groom lifts from the bride. Arts and crafts tether and ball. Why race through this life when you can allemande-left, do-si-do, square up with your partner and sip punch on the rec. hall veranda. If I say east, will you say mountain? Therese still a chance these animals will accommodate our intrusions, remain wild enough to make the futures yesterday now. What is empty can be generous, moonlight on the athletic fields, the wide shoulders of the soccer goals. Of course we’d rather dip a paddle or swing a racket then trudge the dirt rode to the dining hall, confront the job of setting utensils for family and friends. The hours buzz with mosquitoes, red badges of poison ivy along with a little muck in our socks. Isn’t this place another kind of home? Think of the Adirondack patience it took to notch these logs, set them against each other, add windows and roof. If you told me an old recording of a long trumpet playing a few mournful notes was the last music I’d ever hear from the hills, from the lake, from the sky; my friend, I would go happy. -Thom