The Lake
A poem about reflection
It stands for the reflection of what we put in it.
The horizon, with its linear blotches
and honey gold sun
calls to us,
our one name,
the name we had assumed as children would carry us
like chariots onto the field of eternal youth…
…the name we’ve since forgotten how to hear.
The name that formed
the heart within us that still pauses
at dusk’s great fade.
The open mouth of wonder has grown older
and uses words more to explore this water by,
though there be swimming yet to do.
This still that can reach into us like a memory’s pure
touch
is the same still that’s always been,
nameless, formless, thoughtless, emotionless, wordless
and yes,
still you.
The eye that sees us without blinking
no one swims in,
it does not dream. It has nothing to think about.
We imagine so many great times pushing us towards
wonderful ifs.
What it would be like had I touched the leg
of the strayed longing
between us
in that place without a time
and that time without a place
as if we could have forgiven the words
their utterance long enough
had burned them away from the fire in our hands
as they forged new paths.
As it is the talk has lowered us into the depths
of what might happen,
if we would have acted
or what it might look like in the universe
where we did.
The lake reaches the clouds
without ever stretching.
The night’s diluvial sigh
speaks to us in a way that if we notice
this time, at long last, finally, can we pay attention
all together now this one last time
we’ll live to pierce through the longing
to find the perfect response,
the one that says, from the breath-giving shadows
“Yes!
This is it!”
There she is, looking out over the vastness,
like she skipped a stone that was her wish
and it skipped all the way across
until it became the sun.
And the windless waves of grief
formed in the wake of the skipping stone
have memorialized our time by sweeping through us,
we participants, we actors, we audience, we watchers
on the shore,
we are left dry and unable to count
the reasons
we came this far without losing it completely.
But here it is,
a center that surrounds us
dining on its own tail
transmuting the tragic and comedic
until it swallows its own alpha omega.
And we’re laughing at nothing
to keep it alive.
To keep us alive.
And Evoloving.
We can discover again the person beside us,
the same curved smile dancing
with tiny crows feet,
the familiar eyes looking skyward
as if waiting for the scheduled fall.
Will there be a kiss at the end?
Or will the end be swallowed by the kiss
of the ten thousand things?
The lake resumes between us
and some brighter projection of night.
