This collection takes inspiration from a series of paintings that can be found at The Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, NY.  Each of the forty panel-paintings by artist Matt Ernst, collectively entitled, Elk Lake Guideboat Series, depicts the bow of a guideboat, a vessel which has long been used by travelers & their guides in the Adirondack Wilderness.  An earlier version of the poem is archived at The Adirondack Museum.

The chapbook contains a sequenced poem accompanied by a few pen sketches.  Each section has a quiet, contemplative tone that builds to the ending:

            4

To return

                       a too young trout to lake:

hold it in the water & open your hand. 

    Gently shuffle

             back & forth. 

Our Grandfather calms the fish.

Drawing lake           over bright gills

    begs the fish,                                  
                                         live. 

Still, it swims away                    slowly,

    as if afraid
    or in love.