We didn’t know the way to Lost Lake by Stephanie Striffler

We didn’t know the way to Lost Lake

when we set out that September day, my brother
and I. Dust gathered on the Volvo’s rear window
until we could barely see where we had been.

Ahead, the gravel road curved
and dropped into endless firs.
We didn’t know a stranger’s directions

would lead us at last to the lake,
surrounded by just-ripe huckleberries
at arm’s reach, to pluck

as we walked. So easy
to meet the bouldered path,
three miles around without a stumble,

Mount Hood flaring bare and bright,
cheering us on, as if no climber
had ever lost footing in a storm.

So easy, too, together,
after the years I’d let us stray off course.
We didn’t know our return to town

would bring the luck
of a riverfront table, the lowering sun
sparkling the rows of white boats

snug at their moorings. Or that it would turn out
to be the one summer’s-end evening
the Symphony boomed Tchaikovsky

beside the water. With fireworks
after dark. Why would we not go on
trusting in our good fortune?

We had found Lost Lake. We missed
the drag in my brother’s foot, his arm
no longer swinging.

*

Stephanie Striffler is a former lawyer for the people of Oregon. Her poems have appeared in various publications, including Calyx Journal, Tar River Poetry, San Pedro River Review, and Denver Quarterly. She finds joy and solace birding, and has observed eight species of sparrow in her Portland yard.