Halfway to Canada

Summers pulled my parents

home to Canada.

We’d stop halfway to picnic

on this rocky shore

and I’d proclaim “When I grow up,  

I’ll live here.”

It seemed more like a game then,

not a prophecy.

I loved this smaller city

on a hill…

this vast lake with its rapidly

shifting moods…

the ships

with their mysterious destinations…

the sometimes riotous,

sometimes mournful

cries of gulls.

And now, more by

pure happenstance

than plan, I’ve lived here

nearly thirty years.

I had not imagined you…

beside me all this time.

You, who claim that you could see

our future, even as we met.  

Perhaps there are things

we come into the world

knowing.

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