How Mend the Years

let him sit on the beach

my uncle    in his lawn chair

that folds like a stork

aluminum and shredded

blue webbing    glass of Labatt’s

in his hand

let him unreel

the past on the waves    psalms

pastures and lilies

the cosmos blooming    stargazing

a blur he almost can feel     made one

with what he is seeing     lake

and the line between water and sky

let him hum without tune

he spools thin lines of bliss

as if fishing

hitching this place to the quiet

promise of peace    geography’s

comforting shape

this bluish brown water    this meniscus

parasol sky    moving    unmoving

unhurried as pre-historical time

let him memorize

the lake’s surface    find

in what he sees there

something that mends