The Old Boathouse

Peacefully I sit, gazing out the glass panes

Watching silent white flakes dance toward the frozen ground

The old wooden rocker creaks below my tired form

*

Closing my fading eyes, I open the portal to my youth

The familiar picture paints a smile on my weathered face

*

There she stands, on a pie shaped piece of land

On a granite tip of island, the weary shell of the old boat house

*

Wanting and bare, she sits across a rutted dirt road

A few short yards from the cold briny tide of the Eggemogine Reach

*

Anchored to the ground like an old circus tent, steal cables hold her heeling shoulder at bay

Mans eternal fight against time and weather

*

Her large wooden doors hang cockeyed, open to the sea

Silently beckoning the young curious visitor into her protective shadows

*

Quickly adjusting to the gloom, my eyes like a harbor pilot

Guide my feet forward along the sun drenched path before me.

*

Tiny dust fairies dance in the sunlight pouring in through the cracks of the weathered walls

Painting jagged stripes on the earthen floor

*

I enter, eyes wide open, inspecting every nook and cranny

In search of discarded ware, forgotten treasures for me to discover

*

I trip over a length of rotten cotton line, clearly discarded long ago

Probably a painter or a dock line from a winter tenant, presently enjoying the summer at home in the water

*

Over in the corner, with a hole in her transom, a faded yellow dingy lays abandoned, motionless

A sleeping turtle dreaming of happier days

*

Next to it, a pair of oars lean against the splintered wall

Peeling white paint runs the length of the battered shaft

Round ends, worn smooth from years of use, it comfortably into my experienced palm

*

A retired sailboat mast hangs long and straight against the back wall

spreaders stretched like tiny arms begging to be hauled out and given a new life

*

Each summer I return to that empty wooden shell of the old boathouse

weary eyes searching dark shadows for treasures, forgotten scraps of summers past

*

As winter approaches and summer departs

Once more, the old boathouse is full, hibernating boats protected from winters assault

*

Peacefully I sit in my old wooden rocker, snowflakes blanket the ground

Seasons change and I grow older, but memories are frozen in time

*

Closing my eyes I open that portal

Dredging up from memories of my youth

In the silence of the old boathouse

Dedicated to my loving parents on their 50th anniversary