Summers at the Lake

The lake bottom was squishy mud
with water plants that wound around your feet,
and sometimes fishes nibbled on toes.

There were ferns under the shady oaks.
If you walked through them you got ticks,
and Mom yelled at you cause she had to stop and remove them 

Mostly dinner was cooked outside.
the kids had to set up the grill.
which never met with Dad’s approval

The cottage was tiny,
There was no heat,
and morning  dew settled wet into blankets

There was an outside shower,
the water was numbing cold,
and shivers were the everydays’ greeting

We kids ran wild all day,
Baseball, Hide-n-seek, statues,
and you’d think all would be tuckered by dusk

Nightfall brought conclave in Coleman lantern reflections
playing games like Clue, and Hearts, and Monopoly
and sharing scarey stories with burnt s’mores

Bedtime was early
cause daybreak came earlier
and it took two tries to roust us out of bed

Cicadas and lightening bugs ruled the night
mosquitoes plagued finding sleep
and it took a stinky spray to allow slumber

Even with all this rigamarole
bad recollections seem to have slipped away from me
and I remember summers at the Lake as the best times ever.

                                                         -Jerry Wendt 2017