Tuesday, February 28, 2012

G. E. Schwartz/ HATMAN

The lake checks its lapping on the shore

to lull late night and then to watch.

The breeze stills its breath in willows

to catch his soft footfall on the beach

as he and his shadow turn, a figure

glowing on its own, where sky and lake

join in the weak light across a beach

parched as bone. The ghosts of

sturgeon lift from the chilled depths

to expand the silent throng: slithering

lamprey, curled alewives, turned shad;

all beneath the surface of these waters.

Gulls halt in the sky, then turn frantic

in convoluted flight--as the night

finds words (All the living left to come,

all the dead long past) under a driven moon

by Point Gratiot's reaching cliffs.

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