Our Secret Summer Spot

I was looking back at photos of last summer-- getting excited about the summer ahead -- and was reminded of our pond interludes between stints at the farmhouse. Our favorite discovery last summer was the Edsel Ford House gardens, located in Dearborn right across the street from a mall. But no one goes there, at least that we ever saw. Once you park and walk through the little patch of woods to the gardens set away from the house, you can almost forget that you're surrounded by suburban sprawl.

The garden has been mostly forgotten, not yet part of the ongoing renovations. It's overgrown and, to the boys' delight, filled with tadpoles and frogs. We visited whenever we were in town last summer -- the quickest route to nature, a fix. It seemed to reassure everyone, including me, that we could be at a pond full of frogs in 15 minutes flat, the boys splayed over a pile of mossy rocks, hands in the water.

I would sit with Iris under the shade of an old stone gazebo, and for whatever reason, she like to practice her dance moves there. See video.

One morning we brought some sandwiches and snacks, and after laying across every rock around the circumference of the pond and catching (and releasing) a few frogs, the boys joined Iris and I under the stone gazebo for lunch and we scrawled a spontaneous little poem on the brown paper bag. They dictated, I wrote. I saved the bag, such a sweet memory for a series of hot, good days.

Across the street from the mall, 
where the parking lot is alway full,
an abandoned pond.
You have to drive past the place you want to go
suburban turnaround
because the suburbs suck.

Frogs croaking out their existence,
like spoken-word poetry on a muggy morning,
slipping through fingers on their way to a cool murky safety.
Forgotten lily pads drying out in the sun
all day long they shrivel
"Ollie! There's a frog under your rock!"

Splash, silence, defeat
Balancing in the cantilevered pose of childhood
Wait
Another slippery miss
with the distant sound of cars rumbling 
behind trees.