Algonquin Park
by Kenneth Hada

    I am sitting on a rocky island
    no bigger than an efficiency apartment in the city.
    Facing west into a crisp breeze, I await sunset.
    Waves splash against my feet,
    an occasional energetic one reaches higher to my thighs,
    but I do not move.
    I am alone on this collection of rock
    piled against the darkness of the surrounding deep.
    Perched on this unmapped anomaly
    that looks something like a prop on a stage,
    I sit in quiet amidst the blue green wildness.
    A heron usually roosts in the highest of the three scraggly pines
    on this precipice but he is not here.
    He'll return at sundown to fish.
    I have taken all the goggle-eye that I want from his waters.
    Drawing them out of the jagged descent about this island,
    I consider their subterranean endurance.
    I am alone except for a wary loon
    who observes me from a safe distance
    though she gives the impression of minding her own business.
    I remember the midnight cries of loons stationed about this park.
    Their daytime demeanor belies their haunted voice
    but I welcome the lonesome sound.
    I feel the immense forest surrounding me.
    Her foreboding spirit welcomes me.
    I sit alone and I wonder just how it is
    that I came to be on this rock.






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