Hurlers

Swimming at Lane's Cove

By: Melissa de Haan Cummings - Jun 02, 2015

HURLERS

King Belly off the diving board
Spread eagled land on your chest
--I don't have my bathing suit
--AWWW
--I don't have a towel
--I'll give you a towel
--I don't want to kill myself
  Splash!
--My pants fell off when I dived!
--I know!  I could see your butt!
--Boys wear underwear under their bathing suits
--Why?

The four twelves, the eight, and the six
climb down the ladder
Find the white canoe
Rock it rock it
She fills, fills, swamping
The six and eight swim for shore
The four twelves tow their sunken burden
Tip it empty it fill it with boys
Drive it to the East Wall

The six claims:  "This is The Best Day Ever!
That hurt, but I'm glad I did it!"

Lie on the low wall
Eyes fifteen feet up
To the four twelve year olds
Who run, leap
Hurl their bodies off
And into the seafull gap

Propel to the West Wall and climb
Leave three eights to paddle
Around the cove to the dock
Two eights leap and hurl from the top rung
Of The Kranky Guy's Ladder
Find it Awesome!

The eights want to fetch a seatless
Trick Bicycle from home
To ride it off the dock
Where they first discovered it

But mothers gather

A mooring buoy is about eighteen inches in diameter
A white sphere with a blue stripe
Around its belly

On the flatiron at half tide
About twenty hurlers
Ages five to sixty
Lined up on the south wall
Aim for a mooring buoy
Some ten feet down, twenty-five
Out from the wall
Most of the stones fall flat
But several hit with a dry Ping
Or bounce off the water
And hit with a Klink

The question is
Will the buoy's owner
Notice the one
Or two hundred
Pebbles piled nearby
At low tide?

At seven that evening
Me and Harry and JoAnne
And five dogs
Sat on and by the granite bench
Lit by the low sun
We saw the row of cormorants
On the rock
Some drying their wings
We overlooked the bay
And saw stillness 
And absorbed quiet
Awaiting our three dinners


E K, Nevin, Harrison Marshall, Luke Sargent, 12
Riley de Haan, Chase Sargent, Emerson Marshall, 8
Dylan de Haan, 6,Nash Marshall, 5


Melissa de Haan Cummings
Lane's Cove
31 July 2014