Without A Trace

When you’re ten you are in between
full of fantasies, yet thinking
you are so mature and grown up.

So when I was sent off to summer camp
I figured it would be so boring,
the fact that the name was,
“Indian Circle Camp,”
didn’t help my mood
for I assumed it would be some silly time
spent listening to nerds in glasses
tell me fairy tales about Great White Spirits.

It was set in the mountains so the scenery was great,
but those fake teepees were not impressive
and seeing some thirty year old accountant
with that pale white skin below his shorts
who wore a buffalo skin with horns for a hat
only inspired more snickers than awe.

Most the time was spent doing the predictable,
crafts and naked hikes
while they tried to get us to belief
us city kids were really members of some Indian tribe.

Was something we just treated as a joke,
made fun of it when we were alone
as well as the staff who all had no clue to the forest,
except for this one man,
he had an air about him
gave us the feel he was a real mountain man,
his clothes were actually genuine lumberjack attire.

One night while we sat in our teepee
talking about all the dumb things we had to do
suddenly we were silenced by his intrusion.
Sitting down on the one cot
his voice grew so serious and scary
for he told us about the forest spirit
who looked for one camper to take as his possession.

Then he mentioned how it wasn’t surprising
that most summers one child would vanish,
be sucked into some other world portal
and be like he never existed.

My buddy Jim thought it totally absurd,
so that night we went to bed
pretending we didn’t believe it.

The next day Jim was gone,
how we all panicked and told the counselors
only they said there was no person
among their record of guests.

Oh we argued and demand action,
they just looked at us like we were crazy,
our hearts so riddle with fear
before our minds slowly became convince we were crazy.

Jim never did show up
as we left camp feeling so weird
even as the car pulled way
I looked back in hopes of seeing him in the trees.