May 2017
Lisa Wiley
wileymoz@yahoo.com
wileymoz@yahoo.com
I studied with Billy Collins July 2013 in the Southampton Writers Conference on Long Island. I live with my husband, three children and two orange cats in Buffalo, NY where I teach creative writing and composition at Erie Community College. When I'm not running, I'm writing. My two chapbooks include My Daughter Wears Her Evil Eye to School (The Writer's Den, 2015) and Chamber Music (Finishing Line Press, 2013).
Walking Around Walden Pond With My Father
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden
You wouldn’t let us go in the water.
Somewhere in the green summer of college visits
between Amherst and Boston,
a lifeguard was on duty, but you thought
this water too sacred for swimming.
It lapped the lines of your existence --
self reliance, simplicity,
sucking all the marrow out of life.
I’d need a whole day to walk around by myself.
I am here now with my children
old enough to tour colleges,
live in co-ed dorms miles from home.
We mark the whole 1.7-mile perimeter,
foliage full throttle burnt orange and gold,
select the beach path over wooded trail,
closer to the deep pond — I lower a bottle
to collect a sample of holy water,
carry a few molecules home to you.
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden
You wouldn’t let us go in the water.
Somewhere in the green summer of college visits
between Amherst and Boston,
a lifeguard was on duty, but you thought
this water too sacred for swimming.
It lapped the lines of your existence --
self reliance, simplicity,
sucking all the marrow out of life.
I’d need a whole day to walk around by myself.
I am here now with my children
old enough to tour colleges,
live in co-ed dorms miles from home.
We mark the whole 1.7-mile perimeter,
foliage full throttle burnt orange and gold,
select the beach path over wooded trail,
closer to the deep pond — I lower a bottle
to collect a sample of holy water,
carry a few molecules home to you.
© 2017 Lisa Wiley
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