The Lake
Turn by turn, it reaches
toward a state of equilibrium.
Dimictic by design, a few degrees
from freezing, making its sense
of ice when suddenly crystallizing
what before we could just see,
a sort of lover’s conclusion.
You believed in the tumble
of seasons. The lake breathes,
but no recriminations, no curses
work their way up to the surface.
I trust in the sediment of years.
The lake breaks up in spring
when we set the boat out on it.
But there is nothing new to believe.
And so we return, it returns,
dead trees still caught in its image.
And the depths we think of
are its hydrology, so we give up
everything to believe. But water
stays pure only when undisturbed.
Clouds gather on its surface.
And we reach from the boat to see
that thing in us that cannot be touched.