NONFICTION
VIRGINIA BOUDREAU
GREEN DORY
The cloyed room is silent but for the rhythmic beep dispensing oblivion and languor in equal measure. You lie on white sheets. Insidious moles of brown velvet break surface on your face and shrunken hands, heralding these lost moments when nothing rhymes.
You row my brother and me out into the cove in the green wooden dory. Pine needles exhale a sharpness that mingles with the damp lake scent as oak blades drip perfect Os on the pond. We drift with the water lilies and scout for flashes of silver perch beneath flat, waxen leaves.
“When I was about your age, Grandpa brought me out here to drop cartons of roots.”
You nod at the pink, white and yellow blooms all around us. “He said someday, we’d hardly see water for all the blossoms.” We hear the awe in your voice.
Winter light slants in tepid lengths across this sterile space. Your breathing is laboured. I imagine a robin shivering in bare branches and wonder where you are.
Sun sparks on the brook where the current meets the lake edge. It’s been a smooth glide through cloud shadow into these peaceful whorls. You drop anchor and the dory pulls to and fro on the river’s breath. We cast our dime store fishing rods, red bobbins wink against the sky.
“This has always been my favourite place.”
Crickets hum on the far shore. We delight in the shimmer of wings when dragonflies frolic in the still air. The sun, warm upon our shoulders, lulls us.
The rasps finally stop, and your mouth opens a well for the very essence of you to seep through. I say a prayer and hope you are swirling joyful in eddies, in flowers, blooming on the lake.
Virginia Boudreau is a retired teacher living along the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. When not at her keyboard, she’ll often be found in her garden, at the shore, or somewhere along a forest trail…all locations that feature prominently in her writing.
