Joy Raab-Faber
Walk Lake

There is no treasure trove where the sandstone lakebed lay exposed.
Turnip topped salt cedar clumps wait, broken slither sticks wait,
fetid toad stumps and clotted bumble-weeds wait to fossilize
with torpid shards of musseled pearl.
Narrow trout faces stare gape-eyed.
Wide mouthed catfish bleach in low cool sunlight.
Man litter’s spread paper-plastic beer-can tentacles beside
tracks of yawping ATVs, euphoric dogs,
old sandaled-men hobbling out along the shore
leaning rubber-tipped canes deep into wizened sand.
Detergent scum reflexively licks the shore,
demeaning sandy red-green algae ridges,
ridges of sticks, of shell, and silver-pink pebbles.
Here is the place the brown deer paused
to watch the slow-dawn moonlight play
over crests, and deep between the fissures
of wind-forced wrinkling water.

<< return to the Table of Contents for New Series #1: Summer 2008, Volume 1 Number 1