Just Desserts and Appetizers

The sherbet orange light of a fall morning in Connecticut crackles with the scent pine. The lake’s parking lot overflows by nine thirty. The S.U.V.s park in a haphazard manor. The boat crew’s flight from reality – or the emersion in it—began in earnest hours ago. Neon-colored, plastic, kayaks adorn the grass skirt before the water’s edge. Dressed in shades as lively as their hulls, the small craft owners match themselves up with their water-horses. They shove off at random intervals. geese land and take off – squirrels scamper Disturbed, Lake Lillinonah ripples with the dip of paddle and the morning breeze. The cotton wood trees chatter to passing egrets. The smell of powerboats, only slightly mars the bathing-beauty glow of the day. Days end will find a conga line of cars pulling in to a local dairy for homemade ice-cream. Truly, God is in his heaven and all is right – at least here, for these few hours—in the world. pink tipped tongues lick sprinkles from the cone: eyes roll