THERE IS A LAKE

There is a lake of fire you have said is set aside for me
and I thank you from my bottomed heart for pious generosity
and yet I fear I must refuse your flaming reds for midnight blues
that ebb and flow around/within the land I came to see.

I stood on cliffs above it, though it was concealed by bluish mist,
and I raised my voice to the pinprick stars and I shook my swollen fist.
"Christ, where is one to fish with me as John was set aside for thee?
Where is the tide to sweep my life before on land I list?"

A stone I thought quite solid slipped beneath my foot through foggy depth
and was swallowed by a watered body whose babble took a gasping breath.
So down through thorns and shrubs and gravel did my soul and body travel
'til by darkened pool I stood and prayed for life and death.

Warm as blood within the body, cold as tears that without fall,
in the night I wavered there, watching the lunar semaphore call.
Knowing lateness will cede to dawn and living still is halfway gone,
I built a boat from wood nearby and set to scale the far-off wall.

There is a lake where one may keep a vigil most lonely and stern,
also wrapped in smog as I, thinking self an only to burn.
The lake is dark with shadows cast, but sun will dance its face at last
and the fiery lake is overhyped - only warm, as some will learn.

1994

Back to contents page

Next poem