We Are Going to the Quarry

They invited me, and I groaned
“Oh no, not another bar.”
Was there nothing else to do
For counselors in Vermont
When not minding the campers
But to spend our cash on beer?

But staying alone was worse;
I hopped inside the last car,
Wondering as we passed each bar,
Left the highway, then the road,
Until the tires crunched gravel,
Then stopped at the very edge
Of a dark limestone quarry.

The full moon was just rising,
Huge twice, once over the trees,
And again in still water
Hundreds of feet down, they said,
Secret, silent, clean and cold.

We were all beautiful then,
So there wasn’t any shame
In stripping so that the moon
Turned tanned flesh to fairy white.
Two ladies had brought guitars,
Two boys pulled out jugs of wine.

We drank and sang to the moon
As it grew higher, smaller,
Our bodies more perfect than
They would ever be again.

Steve Harvester was a Methodist minister for 25 years, and is now a sales rep for a New England home remodeling company. He and Judy are the parents of four. This is his first year working on his poems seriously.