Torch Lake - Years Go By

The cedar dock splinters out to the moon's shine Like the second hand ticking along A white-faced clock Drawing in loose boats and green moths To its sweep of time Is there any difference Between those little dots of cabin lights Strung like pearls along the shore Three miles across Torch Lake And the stars crowded light years away? Orbs swirling with life in the dark Even now We only but understand the skin of the universe The ripples of a lake Thin clouds aching like fossils Under the moon’s archeological search by headlamp My wife and I at the campfire Measure distance By the relief of this quieted July Sunday night And the passing orbits of the space station Three cycles Is the most we’ve ever survived Depends on how full the cooler is And how many words we have left to hum and turn Holding hands as the night whittles away And the flames lower to a bath of embers To the tapping Morse code of our bare toes.