Living.(New poems)(Poem)

 
Living 
 
   In winter, once the ice on the lake is safe, 
   a group of local ice-fishers build a town 
      with houses, streets, a store, a tavern-all 
      the necessities--then move out there. 
 
   By day they wait for nothing they sense or see 
   until a line goes taut like a sudden thought, 
      and someone lifts a flash of silver 
      out of an opening in the surface. 
 
   With darkness, things are otherwise. Then the lights 
   that glitter on the shore they have left behind 
      amount to a new constellation 
      born in the lowliest part of heaven; 
 
   then sometime neighbors head to their tavern, where, 
   because they know the season is all too brief, 
      they stay up later than they mean to, 
      playing guitar, trading stories, drinking,  ...