The Vanishing LakeA Poem by David Lewis Paget‘I’ll
see you up at the lake,’ I said, As
she backed on out of the drive, And
that was when, if I’d only known I
would last see her alive. But
Sandy gave me a cheery wave As
she drove on up the hill, If
only I could have stopped her then My
wife would be with me still. I
had some errands to run, so I Would
go, the following day, When
she had settled us in, I’d go To
the cabin, ‘Come What May!’ We’d
called it that, it was always May That
we dropped our tools and went, Nothing
would stop us, come what may For
that was what ‘Come What’ meant! The
cabin stood by a gorgeous lake That
reflected a pale blue sky, Two
miles long, and a half across It
was plenty, for her and I, We’d
row the skiff to the deepest part Then
lie, and we’d laze all day Maybe
we’d throw in a fishing line, Or
maybe just read, and play. I
didn’t arrive ‘til four o’clock On
the Friday afternoon, Her
car was there, parked under the trees But
the cabin was locked in gloom, I
scanned the lake for a sign of her And
then I began to frown, The
skiff was floating out in the lake, But
floating there upside-down! My
heart jumped into my mouth and I Took
off for the lakeside shop, I
knew that he had a motor boat He
was also a part-time cop, I
ran in there in a panic, said ‘My
wife was out on the lake.’ I
asked him if he had seen her, but He
just gave his head a shake. We
took his boat and we motored out To
look at the floating skiff, I
said, ‘It’s just a flat-bottomed boat, So
what could have made it tip?’ We
cruised around and we searched for her We
searched ‘til the sun went down, Then
hooked the skiff and we towed it in And
turned it the right way round. Her
bonnet, lodged in a cross beam was The
one thing left of her, We
called in the river police, who dived And
made a most thorough search. ‘She’s
nowhere down in the lake,’ they said, ‘Perhaps
she ran away? We’ll
try again when the sun comes up But
can only give it a day.’ The
cop said Sandy was not the first Gone
missing, out on the lake, They’d
never recovered a body yet But
the water had swallowed eight, And
every time from a boat, upturned, When
there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, They’d
simply vanished without a trace And
everyone wondered why. I
sat and cried for a week up there In
the cabin, ‘Come What May’, For
Sandy was the love of my life In
a quaint, old-fashioned way, Then
something snapped, and I took the skiff When
my mood was raw and black, I
rowed on out but I took with me A
precautionary baseball bat. Something
had tipped that wooden skiff, Something
was really wrong, Could
it have been a giant fish? Whatever,
it must have been strong. I
lay out there for an hour or two With
the bat clenched in my fist, And
then the surface bubbled and boiled And
a hand grabbed for my wrist. A
head came up with a mighty roar It
was green, and covered in weed, I
took a swing with the bat, and cracked Its
skull, it started to bleed, But
the blood was green, and the monster screamed As
I went on the attack, I
swung and slashed at the monster’s head ‘Til
I heard the skull go ‘crack!’ The
skiff was rocking, I kept my feet And
I stomped all over its hand, Smashed
its knuckles and heard it squeal From
a mouth that was full of sand, The
teeth, like razors were bared at me And
the bat got stuck in its throat, I
thrust it down with the baseball bat And
it sank, right under the boat. You’ve
never seen anyone row so fast As
I made it back to the shore, I
spent the night in the cabin awake And
I kept my eye on the door. When
I wandered out to the pale grey light In
the first full flush of dawn, I
looked on out where the lake had been But
the whole of the lake had gone! There
was just a muddy sediment there Where
the lake had been pale blue, The
cop came out and he scratched his head, Said,
‘God! What happened to you?’ I
looked on down in my horror, found What
the cop at first had seen, The
lake had gone with the monstrous one, But
the whole of my skin was green! David
Lewis Paget © 2013 David Lewis PagetFeatured Review
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