Why a poem about a lake without an accompanying photo?  It seems I have run out of media storage space. I have many new, interesting pictures I wanted to share of a Chinese Autumn Moon Festival and Japanese gardens and more.  I’ve had three blogs for many years; I thought I knew what I was doing… but I am in the midst of trying to figure out what next without paying more money to upgrade to the Business Plan, which I don’t feel I need.  If anyone has advice about deleting photographs (while saving texts) in Media other than trashing a few at a time, please share suggestions. Thank you!

Meanwhile, I offer a poem I have worked on a bit more about a visit to Lake Crescent in Washington during trying times 7 years ago. It still resonates with me. 

**************************

Lake Language

Those were damaging times,
when all the words left seemed
too little or self-important,
and since I had too long ridden
that dragon’s tail of grief,
not one syllable could tell me anything good.

So I left for the lake, its imperishable
silences and soundings,
mutations ranging deep to death defying,
sterling surface exhaling blue
while I slept, becoming innocent.

That next day the sun rose like a crown.
What seemed at first rain drops
were branches shushing the world.
Leaves flew across my face
burning with color and
clinging to my shoulders,
impromptu cape that streamed
all the way to paradise.

Every mystery bounded trails
so I wouldn’t lose my way:
tiny saplings, mosses, lichen
clung to aged nurse logs,
black beetles scuttled in shining armor,
bees feasted until nectar emptied.
Streams rumbled ancient warrior ground
and my feet listened.

I might have danced with cedars,
vanished on plumes of mist,
but the lake called, its waves
bestowed with promise and
thrusting toward shore,
stones turning over like happy creatures.
Clouds drank at the edge of
water limned in September gold.
Its glacial heart melted in
the palm of my hand.

© 2011 Cynthia Guenther Richardson