Lake poem
Still thinking about blue —
Flathead is a string of beads
As soon as I see the water I have to stay. Blues and greens
and colors I never use the words for: beryl, azure, cerulean,
cyan. June and too cold to swim but I watch the currents,
the small fish the moving surface seems to make. Sunlight
turns the water turquoise but clouds darken it navy.
All the time the Mission range is black, black — like the
ravens that line the path back to the motel, like the jet the
water turns at night. In my room I look at the names in the
Salish and Kootenai Confederated telephone book: Laverdure
and LaFrombois, Kudlock, Normandeau. I read the bits of
history the telephone company sees fit to print. I wish I could
hear lake water lapping but the only sound that comes through
the pines is wind. I go to sleep thinking of blue beads and water,
of the shh sound in Mission, in Mission.
—Maureen Gibbon
Flathead is a string of beads
As soon as I see the water I have to stay. Blues and greens
and colors I never use the words for: beryl, azure, cerulean,
cyan. June and too cold to swim but I watch the currents,
the small fish the moving surface seems to make. Sunlight
turns the water turquoise but clouds darken it navy.
All the time the Mission range is black, black — like the
ravens that line the path back to the motel, like the jet the
water turns at night. In my room I look at the names in the
Salish and Kootenai Confederated telephone book: Laverdure
and LaFrombois, Kudlock, Normandeau. I read the bits of
history the telephone company sees fit to print. I wish I could
hear lake water lapping but the only sound that comes through
the pines is wind. I go to sleep thinking of blue beads and water,
of the shh sound in Mission, in Mission.
—Maureen Gibbon
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