THE LAKE
In autumn chill I sat at the edge of a deep blue lake.
It was placid as the stillness of the moon in solitary space.
Silently as if stirred by the slightest briefest breath,
Perfect circles in a series broke the surface, moving outward.
I watched the widening whorl travel to the edge then bounce
back.
Something—or someone—had touched the water.
Maybe it was a bird dipping down or a fish twitching its tail.
Maybe a dry leaf riding a draught had made a splash landing.
When the waves had spent their energy, the lake becalmed again.
It shone purely, a polished mirror of the sky: blue to blue.
I felt the cold wet air rise but did not hear the wind swirl.
I waited for one hour and the surface stayed serene.
Originally published in Brew
Your Best Year (September 9, 2014), an online publication of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
 |
| Lake George (1869) by John Frederick Kensett |
Another version of this poem:
ReplyDeleteTHE LAKE
In autumn chill I sat at the edge of a deep blue lake.
It was placid as the moon in solitary space.
Silently as if stirred by the slightest briefest breath,
Perfect circles in a series broke the surface, moving outward.
I watched the widening whorl travel to the edge then bounce back.
Something—someone—had touched the water.
Maybe it was a bird dipping down...fish twitching its tail...
Dry leaf riding a draught making a splash landing.
When the waves had spent their energy, the lake becalmed again.
It shone purely, a polished mirror of the sky: blue to blue.
I felt the cold wet air rise but did not hear the wind swirl.
One hour lapsed, the surface blankly serene, whispering along the marge.
Gonzalinho
Imagine a lake that’s never been affected by climate change or any other man-made influences. Australian scientists say they have found just that—a remote lake whose crystal-clear waters seem to be in the same chemical state as they were about 7,500 years ago.
ReplyDelete“It's like God’s bathtub,” Dr. Cameron Barr told the Australian Associated Press of the body of water now named Blue Lake. “It is beautiful. It is absolutely beautiful.”
Barr and his team of researchers from the University of Adelaide say the lake—one of the largest on North Stradbroke Island off the south Queensland coast, according to the AAP—is so pure that you can see more than 30 feet below the surface to its bottom.
“It appears that Blue Lake has been an important climate ‘refuge’ for the freshwater biota of the region, and is in the same condition now as it was 7,500 years ago,” Barr told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Barr, who published his findings in the current issue of Freshwater Biology, said it’s the only such lake of its kind known to be in Australia.
Link:
http://ph.news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/scientists-uncover-remote-lake-untouched-pollution-7-500-190246166.html
Metaphor at work.
Gonzalinho
Public domain image
ReplyDeleteImage link:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kensett_John_F_Lake_George.jpg
Gonzalinho