Frontenac

The Family huddled
Against the
Yellow, unevenly chiseled, limestone
Cliff wall
And the father wondered:
Would they be safe and dry if it was raining?
(It wasn’t, of course. The weather was peaceful, pleasant and perfect
and the cliff was sheltering us from the wind)
To answer their question, they looked up and saw Rock.
No.
They would not be precipitated.

So they turned around and looked
Out through the trees
at the big river far below. It moved slow.
What if they could see sheets of rain pounding on it?
What if they could hear thousands of drops
pattering on thousands of yellow and red leaves?
What if they could intimately witness the wetness
And still stay high and dry?

But then they looked to their left and saw a slope of rock and moss
Aimed down, directly at them
And a crack near the face of the cliff which would act as a funneling trough
Straight toward them
In the event of rain.

(In this crack they found a large fuzzy caterpillar.
The father took a stick to gently move it
To prevent the certainty of it’s being drowned
In the event of rain)
This being done
They looked back at the rock slope to their left
and decided that this would not be a good place to stand.

Maybe if they moved to the right a little.