Lakeside Sketch

      Where a single steeple keeps the sky
      And a scribbled wet of charcoal darks
      Laps lapsing to meet the day,
      -Crosshatched by wind's artistic lark,-
5     Monday quiet's come, as quiet may
      Upon one meditation-taken;
      After-silence serves some way
      For all the echo left the lake.
      The boathouse goes down to dock
10    On knees of battered pilings.
      Suppliant to greet common rock,
      The dock goes flat as filings.
      Astute, the musing rock
      Lets the mirror water watch
15    What it has mind enough to mock:-
      Searchers who seek a latch.
      There is no back or access side
      To such a thing that is all is;
      And if you say inside,
20    And take inside out to see what 'tis,
      I'll say, 'tis better far to glide
      Whatever offered surfaces
      And decode what pleasure there resides
      In such interstices
25    Than creep through dark, however wide
      The open crosshatch seems or is,
      To pull apart, to peer at tides
      Whose motives are their business,-
      And trouble them enough alive
30    To wash our prayers with their sighs.

 

From the collection "The Timid Leaper"

Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]

More information available on gregglory.com.