Last night I wrote a poem for a friend who is up in Maine dedicating a stone to her late husband. She offered me her lake house which is right outside the city for the weekend. I thought I would come here to write, and catch up on my deadlines and works in progress. Instead I continued to heal. There is something about water, about nature, about the sun rising and setting so effortlessly that has me tapping into poetry. It’s not that I’m not writing. It’s that I”m writing differently. I’m also living loudly. Life is about all of the moments. Life is about radical rest in times of great change. Life is about love. So for my friend on this day of her husband’s stone dedication I pass this forward to you all. Thanks for reading - and also I’m in the process of starting a Substack finally. More on that soon. Lots of love, Amy
Over Water, Under Sky
by Amy E. Witting
I swim on your empty lake at sunset,
a Monday in August,
the taste of school a whisper away.
A swan in the distance
circles the water—
ripples, rings, remembrance.
The beauty still surprises me.
A day bookended with magic—
colors, the sound of birds
catching flies midair.
I float on my back,
alone on this lake—
his lake, your lake—
one filled with love.
He found potential here.
You find your healing.
Weeds rise near the shore;
I pass through them to reach the center,
where the water is clear and still,
cooling my warm body
beneath the mid-August sun.
I look back. On the bank,
against a tree,
a man with black hair
watches me.
I didn’t see him before—
or did I?
Even alone,
I am held—by whom, I don’t know.
The sky is boundless.
To reach this center,
you must pass the muck,
the goose feathers,
trusting you’ll emerge.
He knew that—
that here, in the middle,
was perfection,
peace,
serenity,
surrender.
He left this to you—
a view,
a middle,
a patch of perfect sky—
no offering in words,
but written in the boxes of things to sift through:
to keep, to toss, to turn,
to make your own.
Love is a confounding thing,
a shared life between two people
who watch each other grow—
loving each other into adulthood,
raising boys into men.
Your boys.
His boys.
A treasure of light
he left for you.
From across the water,
a camp echoes with youthful laughter.
The sun slides behind her mountain;
I just miss her gaze,
but she leaves a trail of red, pink, and amber
across the sky—
his sky, your sky, our sky.
All around me is the love
you shared with him,
and the lake that holds it still.
The swan has gone.
I will return to the house
on the shore,
up the road.
Through the muck,
back to land.
Life always seems a little like this:
passing through weeds
into new beginnings,
seeking grounding—
strong and tall like the oak.
Out of the water,
I walk toward this man resting by your tree—
and see no one.
Silence.
Only the fading of a perfect pink sky,
a whisper of thirty years of your love.
He gave this to you,
unfinished,
in pieces,
so you could make it your own.
This is love—
expansive,
silent,
wrapped in an unrecognizable present.
Now I stand on the shore, looking out at the lake.
You have given this to us—
to those you love,
and who love you—
offering a piece of your broken heart,
letting us help patch it together,
threading it with unseen strands of a boundless universe.
A gathering place.
A watching place.
A healing place.
A home overlooking water,
where the sun will always gently set.
We will watch it all with you.
