The darkwater cloud of memory
 Soils the crystalline clearness
     Of the lake,
Turns it from a pane of perfect glass,
     A key to some sterile bottom,
Into a living, dancing mirror,
     A reflection of the sky above it,
     A reflection of trees,
                  of living birds,
     Of creatures beyond its narrow confines
While within teeming life dances in secrecy,
     In the privacy beneath
     That glassy concealing wall
     Of the surface of the lake.
Fish eats fish in hiding,
     Interrupted only by a few surface ripples,
     A small intrusion
          At the intersection of a plane.

7/2/83

Index     Comet Watching