August Poem

August again and all is quiet here
everyone gone to Iceland, homeland
of ancestors and family myth

we lay in the white yellow sand as the sun slides,
my sister and I, the children too
one naked, one crawling, one burrowing in the sand

the light is playing,
its magic game, cut here
where she and I have long lingered

years have passed and
with luck, more will
in the quiet presence of this lake

being children or with the children
or old as crows--then I remember,

just this morning, I watched
two black birds fling and flip
and peck across the beach

they have all gone but us and our
sister with the new baby
so we swim and drink our coffee
and light the sauna and talk awhile

with the sweat coming down the brim
of our noses, with our bodies floating out into
the water, and the moon rising between the pines
as we wade through the shallows back to shore