Lake Lullaby

There are nights I take a pallet to the porch, screened-in top to bottom for a peerless, solitary panorama of emerald grass sloping to rippling lake, protected from threat of varmints, a resident reptile or two, known to favor unattended pets, the smaller the better. I'm not a mouthful morsel, I'm here for the choral prayer of froglets, their deep-voiced granddaddies, petitioning God, however perceived in the gentle persuasion of wind, and lilting water music. I understand, now, in the second half of life, why, after my father's traitor heart took him away, my young, widowed stepmother, (this from memory's vault,) took her lawn chair down to the sea to sleep at night for palliative care seasoned with salt.