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Thursday, August 15, 2024

Sestina: The Lake Michigan Shore

I stand knee deep in high waves
And wait for the darkening sky
To loose what it’s long held back,
A cataract of warm rain,
Like a proliferation of clear ideas
A mind no longer contained.

I read a book with no ideas,
A tangle of clouds in empty sky.
I couldn’t read it front to back
Or back to front. All it contained
Was words, single drops of rain
Or particles that were also waves.

The smallest moth is contained
In a cluster of dusty ideas
Within the vastness of the sky.
It clings to rotten wood, its back
As camouflaged as water in waves.
It is not moved by the fiercest rain.

The lake is high after endless rain,
An excess of lightning finally contained. 
The sun sweetly burns my back
Until it slips into a rift in the sky.
I find relief diving — the waves
Drown me with persistent ideas.

The sun slowly escapes the sky
Into the horizon, earth-shadow-contained.
Still air can’t raise a single wave
Or loose even one drop of rain.
All I see is the cessation of ideas.
For the night there’s no turning back.
I’ve known myself to talk to sky,
To write incessantly in rain,
And all I’ve said eschews ideas.
On my last day here I turned back
From the lake with waves
Of farewell, memory contained.

At home, the sky is bereft of ideas,
As the garden is of rain. It’s good to be back,
The lake contained but for dreaming waves.