IT'S ONLY HUMAN
Thursday, August 6, was dream-lake afternoon. The water, placid and aglow, was the ideal surface for hundreds of gulls, and an occasional goose, to float, dive, and harmonize. “It sounds as if the gulls are singing!” I exclaimed to my grandsons, as sympathetic vibrations replaced the usual seagull squawks.
The boys were building a village on the narrow sand strip at the foot of the Shorewood Nature Preserve. I sat further from the water, at woods’ edge, drawing and making observations, “Look at that! There’s so much mist on the horizon the motor boats look like helicopters.”
The water rippled instead of waving, barely a breeze, nary a cloud, sky’s light mirrored upward by the lake. Suddenly a wave rolled in, flattened my grandsons’ village, sucked their shoes from the dry sand, attacked my backpack, which till then I’d considered safe. Another wave came, boys laughing as they tried to save their sandy handiwork, then another wave, and then total retreat, barely a breeze, the lake again more mirror than monster. The boys began to rebuild, and I returned to my drawing, though on the alert for renegade waves.
I could draw forever, the boys could build forever. I envisioned several more days spent like this before the weather cools.
The vision ended that evening when I went to the Conservation Committee meeting. Someone mentioned, not for the first time, the problem of human fecal matter in the lake. A runoff pipe is just to the north of Atwater Beach. I said I’d spent the afternoon with my grandsons on the beach at the nature preserve, several hundred yards to the south. “That’s far enough away, isn’t it?”
“No, the water along the shore tests positive more than seventy percent of the time. I would never swim in it,” said someone who knows a lot about water quality.
“Well, they didn’t actually swim, just built castles at the water’s edge.”
“That’s even worse,” he replied. “”That’s where the bacteria get caught and accumulate.”
On Saturday I biked to the Atwater Beach Party to see if people were swimming. They were. And the following day I checked again, walked down the 145 steps and warned a friend whose very young kids were in the water. Ruined her day, didn’t I. We wondered what warnings were posted, walked back up to double check. There was a water quality advisory: For your safety: Swim at your own risk. Don't ingest lake water. Shower after swimming. Wash hands before eating. Do not swim if you are ill. Increased risk of illness may be present Based on recent monitoring for E-coli bacteria.
Today, August 17, the sun shone, yet an opaque grey cloud rested right across the lake from north to south a few yards from the shore, as if the breath-taking sky began just beyond the shoreline!
Here's a poem I wrote twenty-five or thirty years ago. Poet William Harrold said a writer writes about the same themes over and over in his body of work. I'm no exception.
THE CHANGES IN THE LAKE
Each evening she watched the sun
set reflected on the lake
She was drawn by the endlessness of the view
fascinated that such infinite space could be crystallized
On some unknown pinpoint in her head.
Horizon in her eyes in her eyes in her eyes
Horizon crystallizing on a pinpoint in her head
Infinity on a pinpoint, on an unknown pinpoint
On an unknown pinpoint
In her head.
She was drawn by the dreamlike light
Men fishing from the dreamlike shore
Men fishing for salmon in salmon in salmon in
Men finshing for salmon in Michigan
Can't eat can't eat can't eat their catch
Shouldn't eat the P.C.B.'s in the fishes' fat
Can't eat can't eat eat it canned eat it canned
Can't eat can't eat eat it canned eat it canned
Can't eat toxic salmon from the
Changing lake.
She was drawn by the dreamlike light
Men fishing in, children swimming in
Eerie Lake Michigan.
Children swimming in swimming in swimming in
Children swimming in swimming in Michigan
Swimming not swallowing not swallowing Michigan
They're wallowing wallowinng wallowing in Michigan
Wading in swimming in not swallowing Michigan
Not swallowing the water
In the changing lake.
She was drawn by the dreamlike light
Men fishing, children swimming
Couples strolling on
Unreal sand
On chewing gum, sewage scum
Rat turds, dead birds
Candy wrappers, bits of crackers
Butts, bottles, broken pails
Soggy tissues, rusty nails
Apple cores, orange peels
Stray zorries, rods and reels
Toxic fishes, plastic dishes
Chewing gum, sewage scum
Chewing gum, sewage scum
Unreal sand.
No matter what the weather or the light
She could rarely predict how the lake would look
On any given day
The temperature sun clouds winds humidity
Mists pollution currents
Every conceivable factor
Affected its appearance.
She was intrigued by the idea
that the lake has as many faces
As it has moments of existence
As many faces as moments
As many faces as moments
As many faces as moments
And so perhaps did her life
Have as many faces as moments
And so perhaps WAS her life
As infinite as
The changes in the lake.
Copyright registered May, 1995
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