On Champlain's Shores

In a meadow lush and green, by a lake grand as a sea, there once was a lonely house small and brown. Inside it someone would wait for a man who went away, a man who was long ago in the ground. It was here the two would meet and exchange words tenderly, until the day he went off to fight Rebs. The first months the letters came, after that she’d wait in vain, folks on that lake all said that he was dead. But no body was returned, so the young woman held firm, and would not leave that place on Champlain’s shore. So she built a rugged shack, every nicety she lacked, and she would not leave the spot ever more. None could make her see the sense, and she kept that hovel hence, folks would bring her food so she’d not starve. She’d spend hours on the sand, waiting for her missing man, with an empty stare that made folks alarmed. They would leave her their alone, and go home and hug their own, thanking God that they knew naught such hard tears. As the decades rolled on past, and trees grew up through the grass, her hair and face were weathered by the years. Then one bright morning in May a young girl did pass that way, saw two people dancing she did not know. They were young and full of life, dressed like a new man and wife, in a sprint to the village she did go. When the elders all came out, the stench there left them no doubt, the woman had been dead for at least a week. Then just buried her outside, they all shook their heads and sighed, no one remained to even stand and speak. The hovel was quickly burned, into memory it turned, but folks still see two souls dance by the lake. Perhaps it’s a trick of light, or things finally are right, and God has seen to fix a great mistake.