On Returning to Lightning Lake
by Charlene Kwiatkowski
This time, we know to walk clockwise.
Pack granola bars and water. Anticipate
a noon arrival at the rainbow bridge whose
curved, wooden beams span the narrows
like jewellery on a woman’s neck.
It is quiet. Gone are the daredevils
climbing the apex in swim trunks
to make thunder with the water. (You
were one of them.) There is no countdown
from three. No laughter, no explanation
to our crestfallen niece that rainbow
can mean colour or shape and wasn’t
the long walk around all worth it?
The mountains today look conflicted:
heads speckled white, bodies a deep green,
covered and barren as if nature has run out
of spray paint. The snow collapses
beneath our feet as we trek across
the lake, feeling supernatural.
The rainbow bridge arcs under a mountain
of its own, has succumbed to winter’s dress code.
The brown frame barely visible, we quicken
our steps, tread between beams of puffed sleeves,
stop in the middle. The lake, trees, and sky
still meet at the same angles. But they also surprise.
You and I turn to each other, unable to explain
how everything feels familiar yet foreign this time.Charlene Kwiatkowski is a Canadian writer whose debut poetry chapbook ‘Let Us Go Then’ was published in 2021 with The Alfred Gustav Press. Her work has appeared in Ekstasis, Crux, Arc Poetry Magazine, Vallum, and elsewhere. In 2020, she won Pulp Literature’s annual Magpie Award for Poetry. She works in communications and occasionally blogs at textingthecity.wordpress.com. Charlene lives in Port Coquitlam, BC with her husband, daughter, and twin sons.
