Nightfall on Summit Lake – a poem by James Green

Nightfall on Summit Lake

That impalpable time 
before darkness settles on the horizon 
and the glare on the surface of the water 
softens to the hue of a graying sky, 

the only sound you might hear is the call 
of a mourning dove or the flop of a walleye.
That’s when you reel in your line and watch 
nightfall turn the tree line to silhouettes 

and in the shallows of the cove stumps rise 
from beneath the surface like markers. 
Fireflies swarm like transitory dreams. 
Then silence takes hold, vast and glorious.

You clutch the gunnel, take a long thin breath,
hungering for it to last.

James Green is a retired university professor and administrator.  He has published six chapbooks of poetry and individual poems have appeared in literary journals in Ireland, the UK, and the USA. His previous works have been nominated for a Puschcart Prize, “Best of the Net” and the Modern Language Association Conference on Christianity Book of the Year; and, his chapbook titled Long Journey Home: Poems on Classical Myths won the Charles Dickson Prize sponsored by the Georgia Poetry Society. His website can be found at http://www.jamesgreenpoetry.net.