Fort Snelling State Park

First, you are driving
and are being asked if you know
where this place is

yes, it's across from the airport
you can't forget such a thing
as well as the sudden bridges everywhere
the bluffs falling away

at the entrance
you go down, down toward the water
as you turn down the slope these posts go on
out 300 yards
with their lights for airplanes
marking an invisible surface that extends
into the empty sky where the land
would be without the millenia
of flowing water.

the river on the right
side of the road as you go toward the pavilions
has the look of a grimy woman
slightly frightening, the age
that she could be your mother
except that her whole belongings are
stuffed in a pale blue backpack
below her cardboard sign

these things
you assume
tell you she has no children
or they are somewhere, far away,
they aren't in touch with her any longer

now at the park however
the morning is as fine as a new suit
and a song
though the pavilion grills
have last year's burger fat on
and the little beach is
still in the manicure of the few
lonely geese who have, for one reason or another
stayed at least until today

the restrooms pronounce
themselves closed for the season

the season, starting all around them
clearly finds this a great joke
the grass is so young
the paths so gap-toothed
the insects still so timid

in half an hour
the sun gets stronger
the birds call less often
people are drawn out
down from the city
on their bicycles
they half-shout to be heard
as if talking with headphones on
their bodies so wonderfully massive
in tight yellow and black bike suits

children pass by
always with sticks
always scraggly sticks
so pathetic and innocent
they are not choosy with the things they find here:
puddles, ditches, tree roots and robins

and who has brought them today?
an old fellow in a sleeveless shirt
and a fanny pack, with a turquoise nylon hat
a grandmother down from her home
with the hostas along the walk
and two enormous planter urns
installed last summer, glazed deep red
to match the door

a mother in her specially cut
black jogging pants with the wicking
polyester cloth and accenting shirt
in the color of energetic
the father with the cycling cap
and black-rimmed eyeglasses

and on the porch
of the interpretive center
a chipmunk dances around
two men of the solid type
with their earnest conversation
over cans of pop
where words like freedom and
our country's history seem to be mixing
with discussion of robber barons
coming in and out like the steady fuzz
of an AM radio show

and all this is to say
there is some secret to the way
that all these people can be loved
by this same day which arose
to the noiseless head of the deer
half-raised, and the lull, lull
of Snelling Lake water

the secret rides with us
in our van back home
largely unnoticed, it is some kind of love
that has learned so well
how to let go and let go
that it has become invisible
it is that missing thing
that it seems like the good earth
is always trying to tell us about