Poem: The Lake

 

The Lake

The surface can be as smooth

As glass, reflecting the puffy white

Clouds and the glaring brightness

Of the sun so that just as you

Cannot look directly at the sun

You cannot look directly at the lake

Or you’ll see nothing but brightness—

Or it can be pocked with the drops

Of rain from dark clouds

So that the entire world seems gray

And gray alone—and yet again

It can be frozen solid, blending in

With the whitened world around it.

Sometimes here I immerse in summer

Or in winter walk upon it.

 

December 2024

About This Poem

This one is a work in progress. I have changed it twice just today and I see possibilities of form that I have yet to try on it. In this version it is mainly just an image of a lake, Payette Lake really, the place where I was born. The lakes and rivers of Idaho hold sway in my imagination and this poem is an example of that. The photo is Payette Lake a couple of summers ago.