Lake Music by Petra F. Bagnardi

A tenderness of laughter, a softness of small hands –
the girl approaches with quivering curiosity the edge of the water expanse.
Just for a moment she lingers; soon, she runs back to the waiting warmth of her parents.
The surface of the lake mirrors the unravelling of seasons.
The girl becomes a little older; alone she rushes towards the blue brilliance,
leaving sure footprints upon the obsidian sand.
Her memory collects colours to bring home to the safety of her family – indigo, rose, silver.
The lake shapes the canvas of the girl’s mind – until she goes to school and learns new paths.
Her fingertips reach for words untouched, which mature into stories – the kindness of a father;
a mother’s sheltering embrace; the ever-changing tones of a lake.
Upon the snowy pages of a notebook the letters form a growing consciousness;
the girl pictures her brown hand caressing the white skin of her parents’ features.
She walks to the blue expanse and rewrites her memories.
Her parents find her where the water creases gently and lazily laps at the dim sand.
A tale of love bright and unconditional is revealed – how she came to them from across the waters;
how fiercely they wished for her; how they kept her journey hidden, waiting for the pure moment.
The family walks down the shore of time, their voices fading into the sound of the lake.

Petra F. Bagnardi is a TV screenwriter, a theater playwright and actress, and a poet. She was short-listed in the Enfield Poets’ Twentieth Anniversary Poetry Competition, and her work was featured in several literary journals including, Masque & Spectacle Literary Journal, Punk Noir Magazine, Poetica Review, Red Door Magazine, Drawn to the Light Press, Rabid Oak.