An Indian Summer night surrounds me
as I walk down the narrow deck on Lake Anne.
It's very quiet tonight with the exception
of some crickets that think it's Spring
and the sound of my feet on the boards.
I grab a bench where I can stare
at the water and drink my over-priced
tea - not because it makes me
a better person, but because I like it.
The tea shop is run by a South American
of high breeding that can explain
the pedigree of every blend.
A tilt of the cup and warm flavours
dance across my tongue and waltz down
my throat as I look out over the ripples.

The lights of the condos that hang over the
banks cast orange and yellow strips in stray
patterns on the surface, which cause it to
sparkle and pulse like a living thing.
Here, all the senses can be massaged
by something that transcends and envelopes
the realms of sight, sound, taste, touch and smell.
This has become my favourite source of solace,
here on a hand crafted bench that overlooks a
man-made lake in a planned community
built over cow pastures and marsh.

An image floats free of Henry Thoreau seeking
aestheticism in a post-modern existentialist
age, where it is a lake, not a flooded field
of dung, merely because we believe that it is.
As I stretch my legs and inhale deeply,
I ponder all the hours of my life that
were sold for such simple pleasures as these,
which are essentially free and almost paid off.

-- Steve McKennon, 11/2001