material things

Material Things

            Warm and soft, caressing my shoulders. Mom was wrapping the fluffy beach towel around my shaking, four-year-old frame. I’d again stayed playing in Lake Erie’s chill water until my skin was wrinkled, and then, knowing better, sat in the shade of the elm inventing adventures for the twig men I’d found among the rocks of Kelley Island’s sandless shore.

            “You should have come in long ago,” Mom scolded with a smile.

            “I know, Mom.” I did know. I’d even thought about it when my teeth started to chatter, but the stories those bits of wood were drawing from me were too fascinating to be interrupted by discomfort I barely felt until the trembling and shaking made me run to the cottage. I knew I’d be greeted by terrycloth baked in sunshine on the clothesline strung from the back porch to the corner of the outhouse.

            My shoulders snuggled in fluffed warmth, the rest of me could drip until all of me, too, was baked in sunlight, recovery, acceptance, security. The texture of that towel told me I was loved.   

kelley island memories

child in the island cottage on lake erie

builds pebble castle on the rocky shore

doggy paddles back to uncle-propelled

raft and sings with family and friends

around the campfire spurting sparks

to the night and burning marshmallows

embroidered with darkness

embroidered with darkness

fine net of twig and leaf shadow

gently undulates

over Daddy Ben’s rocker

k island summers

island off sandusky in lake erie

housed our family summers

during the few years that i remember of world war two

uncles on leave visiting in uniform

campfires on the rocky shore - s’mores, singing and stories

invitations to all who wandered by as sparks burst up into the darkness

and stars laughed above us

                               mjNordgren  10/4/2022 

Kelley’s Island bonfire

Kelley’s Island in Lake Erie

primitive cabin with electricity that went off and came on

as it would decades ago

but plenty of driftwood drying on the lawn until ready

visiting extended family built a bonfire on the rocky shore

neighbors and strangers from up and down the coast

came to the leaping orange of the flames and spitting sparks

as we sang The Cannibal King and Swing Low Sweet Chariot

with my sister beside to hold me i let my toddler self be gleefully frightened

of the flitting firelight and shadow playing terrifying angles

on even familiar faces

how i learned to swim

how i learned to swim

 rafters on wood deck over sealed, empty metal drums

in the frolicking waves of Lake Erie off Kelleys Island

uncles threw me in; now row away from me

as i doggy-paddle, laughing

knowing they’d risk their lives

to keep me from harm