Selfish Solitude

As I grow older, I reflect on the cost

of selfish actions and what I've lost.

Regret and wisdom entangle in thought—

lessons learned—though dearly bought.

By Steven Wade Veatch

Evening Reflections: Duck Lake

Late in the day the sun sighed.
The lake sparkled as if polished.
The ducks did not notice
a salmon-colored sky as it unfolded—
but a loon did.

As the sun fell from the sky
a fading twilight filled the horizon.
At family gatherings a campfire 
blazed and crackled, 
filling the air with popping 
embers and wisps of smoke.
Dancers arrive in the shadows,
people of the past, 
linking hands, they spin 
to the plaintive fire’s song.
And then they are gone.

Nothing is the same:
the empty swing, 
a broken lawn chair,
the vacant cottage. 

A restless loon flutters, 
its wings beat anxiously,
as it desperately tries to hold 
onto the last remnants 
of the fading day, 
unwilling to succumb 
to the encroaching night.

By Steven Wade Veatch

Dreams in a River of Gold

Art generated by AI.

 

Beside the meandering stream,
a prospector worked his gold pan
while water tumbled over 
smooth granite boulders. 

Here the mountain stream 
grew deeper in its channel 
and formed pools, a likely place 
for gold to settle.

The prospector tirelessly shoveled, 
sifted, screened, and panned—
then picked gold nuggets 
from the black sand in his pan.

Laboring by the stream, he knew why
he left home, saying goodbye—
swapping his life for one on the frontier,
a life of hardship, danger, and brutal work. 

The reason was clear when he bedded down
by a crackling campfire, under a cold 
sky filled with stars and a half-moon. 
As he slept, next to the stream, 
the aspens whispered dreams 
making a strike, taming a new land, 
and building the West.

By Steven Wade Veatch

Artifact at the Museum

By Steven Wade Veatch

The black porcelain pie bird 
postures, fades, and then evokes
my great-grandmother Daisy.
She taps on the door 
of my memory.

Adrift in thought and time,
I let her in. I hear her voice. I listen 
with my eyes closed as she meanders 
through my thoughts and fills my heart.

I remember: She wore a print farm dress 
and baked pies for my dad.
He liked two kinds: hot or cold.
I forget: What it was like when she held
me in her arms.

Our time together escaped, 
like steam venting through 
the pie bird’s yellow beak.
Those hours are gone,
moments overlooked,
time lost.

These days cannot compare
to her time of promises
and delights.
I smile.

No amount of poetry 
can bring us back together again—
but the pie bird did.

Pie bird at the Benzie Area Historical 
Society Museum in Benzonia.

The Last Frog of Summer

By Steven Wade Veatch

I. Wind

By the pond, I listened to the tumult of the wind 
and tried to distinguish each sound that swirled 
through the spruce and tamarack trees. 
It sounded like twisted whispers through a hollowed-out log. 
Breezes made the branches lash and tremble. 
The animated leaves fluttered and danced in the wind. 
The air charged with the fresh scent of ozone after a rain—
nature’s purifying incense. The drag of the wind 
made slight waves over the open pond.

II. Pond

The pond is an expression of the intersection 
of the water table and the landscape. Slabs of sandstone
border the pond. One slab reveals where ancient waves 
once pounded the beach with conviction—leaving ripple marks 
in the sand, now lithified. Green leafy blades of wild iris reach skyward 
while tips of emerald stalks are covered with crowns of purple blossoms.
Little white flowers rise like periscopes.  Cushy, green mounds of moss 
and wetland plants soak up the land’s stress. 
They filter and purify the water and fill the wells. 
Here is the heart of an active ecosystem that provides 
a certain wisdom as the circle of life plays out.

III. Frog

A Northern Green Frog settles in on a wet rock 
and lingers after a light rain has ended.  
An oakleaf fell to the ground near the frog, 
and on the leaf’s surface beads of rainwater 
scatter sunlight like an opal. 

IV. Brevity

Although the transitory nature of the water adds 
Life in the elemental, living in the elemental, 
to the mystique of the moment, I am moved 
from my comfort zone by the bitter winds of my own brief time
as I hand over another day—moving closer to the end, 
just like the water beads as they give up another molecule 
with each passing moment, until they slowly evaporate 
into oblivion. What is there after that moment comes? 
Will it be as quiet as the steep silence of the moon, 
or will it be darkness as unrevealing as the night?

At the Museum

 

". . .  our artifacts tell more about ourselves than our confessions."—Joseph Brodsky

By Steven Wade Veatch

 

Time stops here: A hallowed place to sense
past struggles, hardships, and joys. Objects—
removed from the flow of time, life’s moments
pinned on a wall, artifacts put in a mahogany case,
and exhibits built under spotlights for inspection—
now belong only to themselves, preserved.
In their presence, I hear them speak, as I step into history.
 
While I look at the yellow kitchen on display,
and the cabinet where your crystal glass
sparkles with its warm nostalgic spell,
I think about your life, loves, and sorrows.
Did someone bring you red roses?
 
I will never see the sky like you did, but I feel your world.
As I consider your generation, I remember my time,
and find truth about myself—that as I spend my days,
I must consider what I leave behind.
 

Published first in the Betsie Current November 3, 2022

 

The Benzie Area Historical Museum
in Benzonia, MI. Photo by Andy Bolander.

When I Return

By Steven Wade Veatch

I will stand in the aspen groves
that edge the old mine,
look at the columbines
growing in the moist ground, listen
to the woodpecker drumming,
and feel the mountain air moving
through the ponderosa pine trees.
 
How fortunate people are to live
in the same place all their life.
I know this land holds my history
and my future will end there.