Waiting for The Din

The lake is quiet tonight, mid-May quiet.  

The only sounds are distant gulls and the dimpling of the water by salmon fingerlings.  The ducks that spent the last month here have moved on to safer nesting.  Only the golden-eyes will stay and maybe a pair of mallards.  But tonight they are not about either.  Neither is the brown bear that ravaged our porch last week looking for easy meals.   No moose tonight, so far.  Two nights ago a yearling was throwing a tantrum in the wetlands along the lake right in front of our living room window.  His mother ambled in later, pregnant and not in the mood for mothering a yearling.  She’s kicked the adolescent out and readying for the newborn, and the yearling is confused to the point of insanity.  He kicks out with his front hoofs as if under attack then charges into the lake leaping and shaking his head only to dash off along the shore when mother comes into view.   But tonight this domestic disquietude has moved on and the lake is quiet for me. 

Next door, I note smoke in the neighbor’s chimney and a light in his shop.  He’ll be here for a couple of days then move on to fish Bristol Bay as he does each summer.   Other neighbors haven’t returned from their winter outside and to my left, the lakeshore is empty.  Earlier the lake hosted canoes, one motorboat, and some kayaks out on the water,  but now the lake is still, and I hear the children in the yard a quarter mile away and the creek that rattles through the rocks a mile’s distance down the lake.   As the darkness settles finally at ten thirty, I enjoy one of only a few more nights before the rhythm of summer begins and the quickening pace of nature’s bloom and human commerce reaches our secluded lake at the end of the road.  But for now the lake is quiet.