River Day

The cormorant dives deep,

No hesitation,

While we idle on the pontoon,

Deciding where to go.

Osprey overhead —

Focused, hunting,

Everything we’re not today.

A jet boat screams past,

All noise and wake,

Tubing kids shrieking joy

Behind it like a tail.

We’re cruising,

Which is really just

Moving without purpose,

Calling it adventure.

The egret stands still

In the shallows,

A heron waits too,

Like it knows something

We’re still learning.

Patient as a prayer

We forgot how to say

Seagulls beg and steal,

Familiar chaos,

The family dynamics

We brought with us.

Then the bald eagle

Circles high above it all,

Watching our small dramas

From a distance that makes sense.

By evening we’re exhausted

From doing nothing much,

Sunburned and soda-sticky,

But the water holds us anyway,

Birds and boats and people,

All of us just floating

In the same uncertain space.