Northern Lake

Published by: Scrivener Press

Title: Our Lakes Shall Set Us Free

Poetry: My Northern Lake

This was the winning poem for the anthology and it hangs above the Margaret Atwood fireplace in the Living With Lakes Center.

Painting by Oryst Sawchuch: www.facebook.com/SAWCHUKHC

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Come with me, I'll show you beauty, I'll show you life,

I'll show you where the loon swallows the sun

and the moon sits in the eye of a snow-owl.

To where painted trees shimmer across the landscape,

setting the lakes on fire.

To where every stroke of our paddle

slices the water's skin

and pushes away our daily wounds.

Come with me, to where we slowly undo

the knots of our everyday lives.

To where we set our stresses free

to float in fresh water and bundle up

at the mouth of some river,

like a well-woven nest,

cradling our anxieties in its broken fingered hand.

Come with me, and we'll trickle through the dam

like blinking eyelashes in the sun.

We'll meet the day together,

we'll leave our past behind

and get baptized by the boreal.

I'll stir your soul and you can stir mine,

until our muscles hurt, until the sun sets,

until our breath turns to frost and the water to ice.

Come with me to my northern lake,

where time drifts away on a youthful dream

and simply sets us free, for a while.

- Thomas Leduc