Children decorated the underside of the hexagonal
Gazebo with colorful ceramic moons and stars
They made themselves. Children attend
The fruit, herb, and vegetable garden,
Under the tutelage of local adults. Children
Play at the picnic tables in the shade, under
The shining ice field of Valhalla Wilderness.
It would be hard to overstate the charm.
On a sunny, active afternoon, children seem
Abundant here, as they are over-abundant
In so much of the world, but actually
They’re becoming perilously sparse.
In the cool hallways between the classrooms
Hang pictures of graduating classes, twenty,
Forty, sixty years ago. The oldest classes
Were the largest. It feels peculiar that in this
Loveliest of places, despite long winters,
The human species increasing globally
As entropy should be locally decreasing.
What will happen to this village when
The children fade? Remember the changes
Already made. People arrived here late.
For a few thousand years, they appeared
To have lived quietly by the lake, until the last
Generations were decimated. Then miners,
Thousands of them, the raking fingertips
Of the international industrial extraction machine.
Then all those mostly young men scattered.
Hardscrabble logging and a little farming.
Then the internees and religious dissenters
That swelled the ranks of those class photos
From the middle of the last century. Later,
A wave of hippies, back-to-earthers, various
Dreamers and draft dodgers, all now elderly.
There was never anything reasonable
About change in this approximate paradise.
You will not survive to see what’s truly next.
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