Sultry and low, the northern tip of the northernmost island
in Lake Champlain, North Hero State Park sits in a floodplain forest, rife and
brimming and laden. The cabin's easy backporch, a raw log bench, supports dirty shovels and
tent poles. Next the swamp white oak, thick and bunched, with three leaves left as lace,
excavated by caterpillars. A juniper by the door where the little gray bird we
never identified sings each morning, rose bushes where the yellow warblers
built their nest. Jewelweed everywhere, soaking its toes in deep damp soil,
sucking it into translucent stems and mottled flowers. Wet, wet, wet – the
water rises high enough to snag fish in the forks of trees, during the spring
floods. This is the mosquitoes’ kingdom, and the pileated. I see them big as
ravens and close, honking and pecking and drumming, their red crests cartoonish
and delightful.
And driving outward through empty campsites meet the beach,
sand and willows and basswood easing into clinking shale. A rainstorm in your
palm, those chattering smooth stones. We wade into high tide, it’s bathtub warm
and the milfoil wraps our legs, zebra mussels slice our toes.
There is a closed loop, by the old leach fields, wherein
dwells the great shagbark, the hickory five feet at breast height, ripped and
ragged and grand. Its discarded shells litter the floor. Here live the great
birds of prey, the hawk and owl.
And the breakneck patchwork garden, a haphazard fence but
parsley and lettuce overwhelming. We watched the sun go down over the sumac.
The line of spruce, the meadow, and the fox kit learning to hunt. The tree
swallows glinting teal in the sun, aligned all on a wire. A garage full of
discarded signs and unused furniture, a great diesel pump tank and the sharp
sting of deet.
The locust trees that swarmed, birds' nests in the grass, millions of frogs. Poetry.
