Wish (Blog Promp 4)

Speedwell Forge Lake, a favorite location for many people in Lancaster, PA, is now a mud hole. Tropical Storm Lee blustered through last year and cracked the beloved lake’s dam, making it necessary for officials to drain the water at the end of 2011. Now, many fear it will never be fixed because the state doesn’t have enough money and the once lovely boating and fishing site will be a thing of the past. Many have taken up the cause, hoping to raise funds in a campaign called “Save Speedwell.” They can be seen outside local grocery stores, asking for donations. They can be found walking down the street, their T-shirts insisting that we save the lake.

                It is the trees that wake me, though. Across the street from my house, they give a long, low wail before thundering towards the forest floor. They moan one last time (or is that a sob coming from my parents’ room?). They sigh a wooooosh as they sadly settle. Shocked, I scamper out of bed more quickly than usual and peer out my window, pressing my nose against the pane as if that will get me closer. An insect-like, orange machine lumbers slowly through the trees left standing. It pulls, pushes, lifts, crushes until only the trunks are left crisscrossing the ground like a giant game of Pick-Up Sticks. I inhale sharply. Lake? What lake? My home does not feel like home. 

                Later, I pull on jeans, open my front door, and peak outside. They are still there, these crab creatures that roar, leaving huge tire tracks in their wake. They roll down my road, dig into packed earth. I stand, arms crossed, and watch the monsters scuttle about as they take and take and take. Eyes brimming, I glance around, a scoff escaping my chest. Why not? There’s no life here anymore.

                Now, I drive down my road, towards home that has changed beyond measure. The last tree fell months ago when Dad died. The neighborhood is much brighter and hotter for it. Our protective, lush canopy is gone. Everything is brown, twisted and shrunken. I look every time I go by, and a deep sadness wells up from somewhere beyond me. Maybe from the forest that’s left. “Will they build houses?” some suggest. I hope not. No one has any better ideas, though. The land has been dormant now for months, and I want to scream for it, "How dare you?!" in all directions, to deaf ears, to shrugging shoulders, to useless arms.  They leave the trunks where they fell. We cannot even claim it as firewood, turn it into an offering. 

                The lake is a mud hole, they say. It’s a shadow of its former self, not even a shadow. A puddle. So, they fight for it. I watch. I place a few coins in a jar every once in a while. I wish that the lake would fill again from sweet rain out of spite only the earth can muster. I wish for those trees, now silent, to send out shoots of green. I hope for birds to spread their seeds so that the forest sings again when wind dances through open branches. 

I wish.

I hope my heart raw.