Another white overcast
early afternoon.
It looks like rain
but it's not going to fall
I can tell.
Sometimes the air here feels like
it hasn't rained in years.
There is no wind at all.
I can't recall there ever having been any.
Not here.
Just like any other time
I'm sitting in the same spot
in the dusty reddish sand
at the edge of a lake.
The fine long grass
is strong enough to grow
as tall as my shoulders.
It has purpose and
seems determined
which is more than you can say
about me.
I didn't drive here.
I didn't travel here.
I didn't come here.
I end up here
now and then.
But almost daily.
The surface of the lake
is an ivory white and
of a motionless smoothness
like a titanium surface.
It is an unbreakable veneer
with only little ripples
of movement
where my eyes fall on its skin.
But they even out almost
instantaneously.
I climb a pitch-black tree
that has huge overhanging branches.
Inky limbs that reach
well over the surface.
At the farthest safe point
I look down onto the ivory complexion
of the water
and I see the raging firestorm
right beneath
all that outward appearance.
all that outward appearance.
Some day those bowels will
erupt and emerge
and this lake will boil with
a singeing heat
and pull me down from my view point.
Ripping me to shreds
in a swirling stew.
There is
no safe distance
between us.
You might as well
dive straight in
with me.