Sunday morning early poem

Sunday Morning Early

My daughter and I paddle red kayaks

across the lake. Pulling hard,

we slip through the water.

Far from either shore,

my daughter is a young woman

and suddenly everything is a metaphor

for how short a time we are granted:  

the red boats on the blue black water,

the russet and gold of late summer’s grasses,

the empty sky. We stop and listen to the stillness.

I say, “It’s Sunday, and here we are

in the church of the out of doors,”

then wish I’d kept quiet.  That’s the trick in life—

learning to leave well enough alone.

Our boats drift to where the chirring

of grasshoppers reaches us from the rocky hills.

A clap of thunder.  I want to say something truer

than I love you.  I want my daughter to know that,

through her, I live a life that was closed to me.

I paddle up, lean out, and touch her hand.

I start to speak then stop.

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