[John Riley]

Revision

One Week At A Very Quiet Camp
September, 2010

We slept in lodges that once
had been part of a boy's camp.
Our warm rooms were cluttered
with watercolors of hunting dogs,
lacquered fish mounted on plaques,
intricate antique models of sailboats,
framed charts of lake soundings.
The lake, dull gray and black
like burned charcoal, stalked
patiently beneath a surface mist
the night we could not decide
to dive together into the lake.
I spent an evening reading Skylark,
a little book about a man and wife
with a hopelessly attached daughter
who shatter when they discover how much
more they love their lives when
the girl goes away for a week.
It's set in a fictional provincial town
in Hungary before the Great War. One
of the peripheral characters is a poet
who dreams of moving to Budapest,
but we know he will never leave home.
The paneling in the lodge was the color
of congealed blood and during the day
the mountains in the Seward Range
shaped a shifting blend of shadows
and were still quite green although
the leaves had begun to turn.


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One Week At A Very Quiet Camp
September, 2010


We slept in lodges that once
had been part of a boy's camp.
Our warm rooms were cluttered
with watercolors of hunting dogs,
lacquered fish mounted on plaques,
intricate antique models of sailboats,
framed charts of lake soundings.
The lake, dull gray and black
like burned charcoal, stalked
patiently beneath a thin, surface mist
the night we could not decide if
we should dive into the dark water.
I spent an evening reading Skylark,
a little book about a man and wife
with a hopelessly attached daughter
who shatter when they discover how much
more they love their lives when
the girl goes away for a week.
It's set in a fictional provincial town
in Hungary before the Great War. One
of the peripheral characters is a poet
who dreams of moving to Budapest,
but we know he will never leave home.
The paneling in the lodge was the color
of congealed blood and during the day
the mountains in the Seward Range
shaped a shifting blend of shadows
and were still quite green although
the leaves had begun to turn brown.