I
What passes in time above the lake
Passes, leaving the lake behind
In its stillness. Clouds, birds, leaves
Moving over its surface
Glitter in abstractions of images
Lost to the time
Reflecting the movement.
The more we look into the lake,
The more we see ourselves,
Speechless, standing still
Underneath the surface;
Shadows of what we were
In the light of the sky.
II
At the edge of the lake,
The faces and the figures
Of what we once were
Dance, disappear
Like leaves on the wind
Falling onto its surface,
Sinking beneath it.
Under the water
They transcend themselves,
Shifting into forms,
Formations, fragments
Fitting into mosaics
Depicting elysian landscapes.
Transfigured spirits.
III
Under the lake,
The things we dreamed,
Half remembered, half forgotten,
Slip out of our fingertips
And into something else,
Sinking down to the bottom
Beneath the water,
Under the light,
Out of sight and mind,
Solid, heavy, silent, shapeless,
Dark reverberations
Bend into figures around us,
Stretched ghosts of faces
Breaking up into waves
Filled with shadows
And light.
IV
If we listen to the lake,
It will whisper its secrets
In a language we do not understand,
Speaking in voices
Drowned in the voices
Murmuring up from under the water;
Something about death,
About its stillness,
its silence,
Something about a resting place,
A transformation,
Passages
And shifting shapes,
Cocoons, larvae, spirits
Threading the eyes of needles
Back into broad daylight.
V
In the morning light,
The lake gives up its spirits
And they rise like mist
Into the trees around us,
Into the leaves,
Sunlight
Walking on the water
Above death and its stillness,
With an ear to the music
Of spring;
Clouds, birds, leaves
On the wind,
Places never dreamt of
In the stillness of our dreams
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Author Notes
This poem is a poem about death, about the transformation of life through death. The lake serves as a metaphor for death, the place of transformation through which we leave the physical world behind and enter the spiritual. Its a poem about the contrasts between movement and stillness, between time and timelessness, music and silence. Of course it remains mysterious, the lake speaks in a language we do not understand, and the images we see are mere abstractions, visions half recognized, half internalized. Life is an imperfect vision, an imperfect experience, yet through transformation, there is hope. There is light beyond the door. estory
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