Once around the lake...

The Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides have all gone home.

 Nights around the campfire and stories of strange noises in the night

fade into summer memories...

It's only Griffin and I who walk amongst these big trees...

The shouts and squeals of marching groups, hiking through

the woods are quieted now.

Cougar, deer and bear can walk more freely along the lake...

And in the curtains of the bull rushes, things that were hidden begin to show...

The red winged blackbird who worked so hard...

...gathering and weaving and raising their brood, have all flown away now...

...leaving this work of down and grasses as testament to a skill

I'll never master.

And who was the one who left my path strewn with little gold stars?

Maybe it was the fairy gnomes who made those noises in the night

with the full moon glinting off of their dust.

So long summer lake.

Close up and go to bed for the winter.

Let the leaves and snow cover the ground.

I'll be here when the birds come to wake you in the spring.