Lake Trout and Document 5

Lake Trout

A substantial shadow in the shade of the shore,

a cool place

between stones

that give back the alpine sun’s shining,

its dappled back

like the lights that appear in the shoregrass at night,

going nowhere

and showing nothing.

Waiting. Watching. Wondering

if those eyes admit memories,

if my face is clear

beyond the lake’s spirituel lens,

knowing  

my intention to cast a line.

My father brought me here, many times,

a legend passed on to him about a hidden tarn,

tucked beneath the cups of two peaks’ cirques, 

a deep pool

shrouded by dense stands of spruce and juniper;

where an antediluvian intelligence ruled waters

as rarified as regal spirits,

striving only for survival,

while accumulating

what wisdom or ways

will the realm toward

an equilibrium in death’s dissolute diet.

A tailfin, larger than my hand, fans sand and silt,

mica and decay,

moving out

to light, taunting,

laughing at me,  

lolling in a languid drift from the flutter of its fins’

feathered fingers,

a dismissive wave.

Document 5

There is nothing in the pantry for her to make

and everything there is beyond her grasp,

anyway; a cup of milk may as well be

an Arabic anagram or

a ton of spoiled meat.

Hunger. For.

Eating, a broken clock, a reckoning of time

manifest in hunger, a gnawing knowledge

that something is missing and things will

be better somewhere, where? Where,

where there is eating, a broken clock,

a reckoning of time manifest in hunger,

where? Where are the rest? Eating?

A broken clock.

A reckoning of time.

Something

is missing.

In between, everything is missing but that

static quintessence of each second, the is where –

where. Where the is is, is an opaque reflection of

clouds on a cream-white opal, an ephemeral flash

of what was but is not is.

Is missing something.

Hunger. For.

Dreaming, a desperate plea, someone needs to be saved

as there’s no time left, what’s left has left her

out, left out, out left, gone, left, out, dreaming is

and out where, where? Where is is? Where is out?

Out where dreaming is the eating and a

reckoning of time manifest in hunger,

eating is, is dreaming is, is is but where?

A broken clock.

A dream. Eating. A dream.

Something is missing.