Boat Ride Over Mecca
A little town called Mecca
lies under gray-shadowed waters
of Missouri’s Smithville Lake,
created by damming up the Little Platte River.
It’s now the Atlantis of the Great Plains.
I peer over the edge of my uncle’s fishing boat,
but see no trace of submerged rooftops.
I would not have known to look if he hadn’t told me.
A lone egret stands on a dead tree trunk
still rooted at the bottom of the lake.
Was this a tree where lovers met?
Did they carve hearts with their initials in it?
My thoughts drift toward the homes with porches
of this underwater town, where neighbors gathered,
where kids watched for lightning bugs.
I think of the old post office
where young women found letters
from their soldiers away at war,
picket fences covered by morning glories,
fields where children played ball,
graves of pets buried in backyards,
all lost to the making of this lake.
Will archeologists find remains
of their lives in a thousand years?
Will they think to search?
Will people still look downward toward Mecca?
Friends at the Grand Canyon
We lean on the chain-link fence,
silently staring at the bands of sediment
revealing whole epochs,
colored red by iron, green by copper.
The Colorado River slices through them,
exposing more layers of this rock of ages.
I turn to my friends,
their own layers of joy and pain
hidden behind sunglasses,
beneath the sparkle of their eyes,
within the black holes of their pupils.
Jennifer Fenn has been writing poems since high school. Her poetry has been published in sixteen different journals, including Homestead Review, Song of the San Joaquin, Tiger’s Eye, and Time of Singing. She has self-published two chapbooks, Blessings and Song of the Katabatic Wind, as church fundraisers.
A little town called Mecca
lies under gray-shadowed waters
of Missouri’s Smithville Lake,
created by damming up the Little Platte River.
It’s now the Atlantis of the Great Plains.
I peer over the edge of my uncle’s fishing boat,
but see no trace of submerged rooftops.
I would not have known to look if he hadn’t told me.
A lone egret stands on a dead tree trunk
still rooted at the bottom of the lake.
Was this a tree where lovers met?
Did they carve hearts with their initials in it?
My thoughts drift toward the homes with porches
of this underwater town, where neighbors gathered,
where kids watched for lightning bugs.
I think of the old post office
where young women found letters
from their soldiers away at war,
picket fences covered by morning glories,
fields where children played ball,
graves of pets buried in backyards,
all lost to the making of this lake.
Will archeologists find remains
of their lives in a thousand years?
Will they think to search?
Will people still look downward toward Mecca?
Friends at the Grand Canyon
We lean on the chain-link fence,
silently staring at the bands of sediment
revealing whole epochs,
colored red by iron, green by copper.
The Colorado River slices through them,
exposing more layers of this rock of ages.
I turn to my friends,
their own layers of joy and pain
hidden behind sunglasses,
beneath the sparkle of their eyes,
within the black holes of their pupils.
Jennifer Fenn has been writing poems since high school. Her poetry has been published in sixteen different journals, including Homestead Review, Song of the San Joaquin, Tiger’s Eye, and Time of Singing. She has self-published two chapbooks, Blessings and Song of the Katabatic Wind, as church fundraisers.