We set up our tent, secure the gear,
and sink into the deep green quiet
of the woods, even though it's a state campground,
and boomboxes crackle by the campfires,
even though we've brought our children,
one of whom doesn't understand the meaning of silence,
but babbles in his own language like clear water
running in a stream, or the lake water rippling
off the prow of our canoe as we drift at twilight;
the full moon spills its light in the water,
bull frogs chug-a-rum in the cattails,
the thin blue smoke of campfires rises in the hemlocks,
circles the lake, a tart blue, the berries we picked
on the island, where the bushes grew over our heads,
but now the dark tent of night covers the sky,
and we drift off to sleep, soughed by the pines,
our breath in the tent rises, joins the small music
of the crickets and katydids, floats all the way
to the harmony of the stars.

Copyright by Barbara Crooker.
This poem first appeared in the Christian Science Monitor in 1993. It also appeared in Barbara's chapbook, Ordinary Life. Used with the author's permission.