We loaf in our gray boat in the sunshine.
The Canadian Pacific freight following the shoreline sends a racket of iron over Lake Memphremagog.
The children cast, the fishes do not bite.
They leap into the water and splash, the Memphremagog monster does not bite.
In the center of Newport, the train blows, one after one, all its five horns.
I think I astonished my cheeks with the amount of tears one child can cry.
Those nights now lie almost farther away than memory goes.
All the elsewheres, as the train’s cries fade, fade.
Our boat lies very still in the Memphremagog water, and it’s still.
Here everybody is OK.
I am fifty. The children are just little ones.
—Galway Kinnell

