ALONE TOGETHER

You let me come to you again this night;
I came not by myself this time -- 
            four of my own kept pace --
But they could only just begin to see in you
What makes me love you so and want to be so near.

The lake was smooth and placid, as the poets say --
Smoother than mirror-glass and beauteous more by far.
In her the hills and trees found each their twin
While there a duck or fish disturbed her peace.

Calm -- 
  yet with life seething on her shores and in her depths;
Sounds of frogs, of toads --
  an uncoordinated choir with many parts.
Light -- 
  more than enough to tell what lies about
  but not enough to see in clearest form
This shadowy world ruled by the second sun
    and all its friends above,
  viewed as through a darkened filter; majestic,
  though not in sharpest focus to the eye.

The many voices of the lake --
    fish, fowl, boats;

The many voices of the shore --
    frogs and toads, cars, tenacious fishermen;

While in the air a silent bird, perchance a bat, soars by
  and tireless gnats and other such are drawn
    as filings to a magnet in human not electric form.

And we are here with you
    alone together.


Robert Kraft
at French Creek State Park
Pennsylvania
4 June 1971