Home > Water > The Lake Isn’t a Life

The Lake Isn’t a Life

but it understands
being forgotten,
has learned to remember itself —

slow heavy depths,
the overflow of night,
earth’s confidante.

Not a color either —
what we call blue, green
but a tone outside the spectrum —

liquefied light,
sky poured into furrows,
cold secret currents.

It’s stubborn —
won’t stop hammering the rocks,
stirring the land —

mottled dream residue,
the aftershock of rain,
my breath made molten.

by Lisken Van Pelt Dus

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Categories: Water
  1. July 9, 2008 at 10:08 am | #1

    I love how the sound and shape of this poem suggest the back and forth motion of waves and tides like memory shifting with time.

  2. Les
    July 31, 2011 at 10:20 pm | #2

    Reminds me of Thoreau’s Walden Pond. I love how the title says everything. Beautiful self-contained piece of writing, like the lake itself.

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