Winter Phase: At the Center of the Lake

At the Center of the Lake

Brother and sister
Fredrick and Jill
Live in a cabin with their uncle, Old McGill
The window pains are foggy, but that’s often just as well
The townspeople
Know one another
Better than they stop to know themselves
Hungry for stories
With a sad one soon to come
As a sullen heart confesses over spirits malign…
Of his only love, his best friend’s sweet wife
Who in mutual darkness was oh so kind

And they built a fire at the center of the lake
“What will come of us?” he asked
But she refused to let him wake
“There is no need to ask
Simply watch…
And sadly wait”

Their mother was an innocent
Father’s a ghost
He sent them ivory brush coral from the coast
It sits on the mantle with his photos from Florida
Alien, enchanting
She looks at it
Daydreaming of the world it’s from
While her brother
Reads of Magna Carta
By the firelight in their uncle’s sugar shack…
As the syrup thickens… so does his bitter mood
And outside he storms without his jacket

He is building a fire at the center of the late
“What will come of him?” she asks
For most tragic appears his fate
But there’s no need to ask
Simply watch…
And sadly wait

An image from last summer
It still holds strong
For, though answered, the question was wrong
Her brother holding a tent caterpillar torch
Flames up the branch
Melting cocoon
Dripped burning babies on the porch
And like a warrior
Over dragon he slew
And posed for her with his terrible prize…
The plague of the woods, he told her was cured
And that all he had done was for right

Now he builds a fire at the center of the lake
And the smoke painted him a mask
And the flames recited all his hate
And there’s no need to ask
For as you see…
It is too late

What was his crime?
What was his wrong?
He loved their mother while their father was gone
The townsfolk called for justice for the sins that had occurred
And to Jill’s horror
Lampblack-faced
Her bother on behalf cruelly answered
And into the old face
That had brought his mother smiles
Stared a lost boy who no longer recognized a home…
And Jill that night sat alone at loss for words
The coral on the mantel, now a tumbleweed of bone

They built a fire at the center of the lake
“What will come of them?” she had asked
As the ice began to break
And now again she asks
And for reply…
She sadly waits…