Poem for Wednesday and Lake Crescent

Lake of the Isles 

By Anni Liu 

January 2021 

After my grandfather died

I waited for him to arrive

In Minneapolis. Daily

I walked across the water

Wearing my black armband

Sewn from scraps, ears trained for his voice.

Migration teaches death, deprives us

Of the language of the body,

Prepares us for other kinds of crossings,

The endless innovations of grief.

Forty-nine days, forty-nine nights—

I carried his name and a stick

Of incense to the island in the lake

And with fellow mourners watched

As it burned a hole in the ice.

He did not give a sign, but I imagined him

Traveling against the grain

Of the earth, declining time.

Spirit like wind, roughening

Whatever of ourselves we leave bare.

When he was alive, he and I

Rarely spoke. But his was a great

And courageous tenderness.

Now we are beyond the barriers

Of embodied speech, of nationhood.

Someday, I will join him there in the country

Of our collective future, knowing

That loneliness is just an ongoing

Relationship with time.

It is such a strange thing, to be

Continuous. In the weeks without snow,

What do the small creatures drink?

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We had a lovely cool Wednesday in the Seattle area with rain late in the evening that will keep tomorrow's temperatures nice too. I chatted with Hildy who was my one high school friend around in the morning, along with her daughter Haley and Adam, who just found a house to share in Ohio in the fall. Hildy is coming to visit for a few days in July! After lunch, I watched the first half of Wakanda Forever with Kristen, which was great both socially and cinematically. 

We walked to the lake in the afternoon, enjoying the gorgeous cool weather and the relatively empty beach, though the geese were mostly hiding and the frogs were quieter. I had a better baseball day -- the Orioles and Mariners both won! -- and after dinner we started watching the new third season of The Bear, which continues to be excellent though so far not quite the heights of the second season. In honor of the cool weather, here is Lake Crescent in the Olympic Peninsula: