The Shallows

willow branches dragged from the waters,
blackened, leafless, lifeless...

...groaning...

rotting contortions clawing vainly at the soft sands,
desperately fighting to hold onto the comfort
of the muddy, mirky shallows.

their twisted stems stripped bare,
mere remnants of glory faded --
now beauty lost,
and death the heir!


So last summer I worked at a summer camp here in Grand Rapids, but before the kids came, the staff had some cleaning/repairing/readying to do, so we spent the first 2 weeks on the job preparing the grounds. Part of our job those 2 weeks was to clear the fallen branches from the lake beachhead so the kids could swim there once camp started. Anyway, on this sandy shore there were two HUGE willow trees, and over the course of the seasons, they had dropped many of their vine-like branches into the shallow water by the shore, thus causing the whole beachhead to be littered with dead branches.

Needless to say, we spent several hours cleaning off the beach itself, and after that, spent a day or more searching through the shallow water, pulling out all of the half-decayed, mud-covered, rotting branches that now lie on the bottom of the lake. It was kinda gross. lol. Anyway, an image has stuck with me even now, almost a year later, of looking behind me as I drug a handful of these 10 ft long black, tangled, whip-like branches behind me to be burned. So I wrote a poem about it. It's a powerful image, really -- an image of these lifeless, decayed branches, somehow still desperately clawing at the sand -- resisting this sudden change... clawing desperately to return to their "comfort zone" in the dark murky waters at the bottom of the lake...

Not remembering what it was like to be full of life.

To sway in the breeze on a summer day and feel the sun and drink the nutrients from the earth.

It was as if they were content to live in that state of perpetual lifelessness at the bottom of the lake.

.......content.....

life was easy down there... no changes, no storms, no growth, no risks..... but they couldn't even see rotten, twisted contortion they had become -- not because of any "sinful" choices they had made.... but because they were content to "live" that way... to sit. to take the easy way. to give in.. to sleep...

until one day.....without warning...these were suddenly uprooted and burned...

"He who has an ear, let him hear..."