The Kids

On summer at the lake (a prose poem)

In the creative writing program I took in high school, we once wrote odes. My ode was to our trip to California, to see off my older sister, who was getting married. I still have the good copy tucked away in a three-ring binder, double-spaced, marked up by Mr. Fitzpatrick, my grade 11 literary arts teacher. Although odes are meant to be a form of lyrical poetry, mine was full on paragraphs, with nearly every one beginning with “Ode to”.

This piece below is an ode of sorts to the summer we just had, to my boys and their cousins and their time together at the lake. It’s hard not to be nostalgic now that everyone is back to their cities, now that these magical days that are both so slow and so fast are over, when there is nothing to do but but and play and talk and laugh and fight. I make dua that pieces of the memories they made stay with them for years to come.

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The kids are building a sandcastle of epic proportions, but first they have to dig the hole of which it is worthy. With their shovels and their hands they scoop, pulling out fistfuls of dirt, wet and soft and lodging beneath their fingernails.

Photo by Fermin Rodriguez Penelas on Unsplash

The kids are swimming to the floating dock to launch themselves from the yellow slide. Climbing hurriedly up the steps and taking deep breaths at the top, squealing in delight as they come down. In the water, they splash each other, slapping the water forward with open palms, playing until the play fights take a turn and tears erupt, footsteps and cries of “Mama…” echo off the trees.

The kids are hunched over an elaborate game of Monopoly, or Risk, or Snakes and Ladders, or Settlers of Catan. With bated breath, they shake dice, watch for fortunes or disasters, cheer and groan and collect and bargain and cajole.

The kids are snuggled five to a couch beneath a soft brown blanket, watching an old movie. Eyes widen, predictions fly. Voices rise and fall as the hero suffers and wins and loses. Redemption is imagined and observed. Chips and popcorn are passed around. Coke is drunk.

The kids run from the water as the rain starts pouring, little feet pattering in the sand, towels collected quickly as the sky opens. Shrieks ring out in harmony with the thunder. The kids take cover, running for awnings and roofs. Screen doors slap, raindrops dance on the surface of the lake.

The kids hear the crinkle of bread bags opening and hunger is suddenly remembered. Stomachs growl. The memory of breakfast returns after being forgotten in the rush of the day. They trickle out of the water in ones and twos, hands grabbing cream cheese sandwiches, sandy bites shoved into wet mouths as they step back towards the lake. The kids are hungry for the food as they are hungry for the play. They devour games, devour cannonballs and dipdives and sunburns, devour chasing and tag and water guns. Lake time is a finite resource and they intend not to waste even a second.

Photo by Derek Sutton on Unsplash

The kids are piled on blankets and mattresses, sleeping the sleep of the dead. They passed out after 2 am and now the world around them has awoken but they can’t. The kids’ heads are heavy as oatmeal is cooked and eggs are scrambled and bread is toasted.

Slowly, they rise, bleary-eyed to the promise of another canoe to paddle, another water fight to have, another race to win. Slowly, they disappear into bathrooms and re-emerge in swimsuits, sleepy voices replaced with laughter, louder with every joke and every exchange. Soon the energy is bursting out of them, enough adrenaline for another day of being children out in nature, freed from the restraints of daily life.

The kids are a reminder of days gone by with bedtimes sailing past - voices hushing as Mama’s steps approach the bedroom door. A light tap, the exhortation to “please go to bed, girls”. My sisters and I holding our breath, still so much left to say at 1 am, the sleep we didn’t get showing in our eyes the next morning.