The dock was small,
weathered by summers before me,
its boards silvered and warm
beneath the press of my back.
It reached just far enough
to carry me past the reeds
into the hush of open water.
I would lie there,
the lake lapping soft against the posts,
dragonflies stitching the stillness,
a breeze carrying pine and sunlight.
And above—
the wide Montana sky
spilled out its drifting gallery of clouds.
I watched them pass—
slow caravans of white
turning into mountains,
into horses,
into castles dissolving
before I could name them twice.
Every shape felt like a secret
meant just for me.
The world seemed endless then,
and I was small enough to belong to it—
held by water,
held by sky,
held by a silence
that asked nothing of me
but wonder.
Years have passed,
yet sometimes when I close my eyes
I feel those boards beneath me again,
and see a sky so full of clouds
it carried the weight of forever.
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