The End of the Season

In the quiet before the idling of inboard motors begins,
a thin fog carpets the marina. The docks hover on cloud,
as if the white boats were moored in a white suburban corner of heaven.

When it lifts, the boats put out, one by one, dead slow,
rumbling wakeless toward the channel markers, quiet talk floating
over the slips as you coil the lines, ship the fenders and go.

It is the last parade of the season, before the slipboards go down
in the boathouse and the camp flag is stowed in the guest linen drawer,
pungent with lavender and cedar chip potpourri.

You want to be alone on the channel after Labor Day, just the hiss
of water under a lapstrake hull. Once past the bell-buoy, the boats scatter,
weaving a bright web of wake between the shoals and isles.

The boats will straggle back all evening, reluctant to approach the ramp,
the slinghoist, a gibbet oiled and ready. The boat barn crew will angle
long past dark to land the last of the season's catch.

You will dawdle and slouch, packing the van by lamplight. Returning to
land-locked life, you'll serve another year of your sentence to the desk,
visions of heron filling the ripple-dappled shallows of your coffee.

Dale Hobson