Loon Point (Gavia Immer) - Loon Point (Gavia Immer) by Marc Beaudin

Loon Point (Gavia Immer)
for Marv & Justine

Its red stone eye
holds within its gaze
the setting sun,
the last embers of a fire,
and all the blood racing through my veins

Surfacing suddenly
beside my canoe, the loon returns
with that terrible, transcendent eye
fixing me forever
in that moment in time

And then its voice:
the hurried laughter of one
driven mad by the incessant pounding
at the door of the world
by the inescapable nostalgia of lakewater

Its silhouette in flight
against the dawn-streaked air
is mimicked by the outline
of this lake’s peninsula
giving it its new name, known

only to me, until now.
Now you too know the secret,
but you must promise
to keep it to yourself
to use only if you go there.

–Keypayshowink, MI