Instructions From N-Sid-Sen
(an abecedarian poem)

Ask this place
beside the Lake to
carry your heart.
Don’t be shy, here
everyone speaks one language: water.

Forget there are cities
growing asphalt and heat,
here you’ll find beach, snowberry, woodrose.
Instead of buildings – ponderosa pine.

Just in case you are lonely, look around, we are the
keepers of each other.
Long for home but
make this ground your
new shrine - -

outdoors and everything
possible! Walk
quietly past bears
respect nesting eagles
sing in all pavilions.

This place knows you,
understands you, whoever you are –
vagabond, wonderer,
witness to life’s stones and pebbles.

Exit the shadows,
you are being called, to claim your own
zenith, to bathe in this parable of waters.

Gayle Kaune
Sr. High Aqua Camp,2005