Lake Glaze

July's sun lingers in the cobalt sky,

caught mid-sentence,

slipping golden syllables

onto the lake's reflective, glassy, skin,

making clones of dragonflies and clouds

that float above the inky mirror of it.

The trees lean in,

eavesdroppers, branches entwined,

hands held in anticipation,

like breath caught

before diving into the murky unknown.

The breeze waits with me,

the hovering humid haze

wrapping warmth around my forearms,

lacing my neck with diamonds of sweat,

the slumbering stillness of it

a cat basking in golden beams

that break through windows,

a welcome intruder that never

needs to ring the doorbell.

I peer into the black, skating the surface

with long seeking gazes,

depths of knowing just beyond the cover.

My fingers long to thumb through pages,

and let my eyes skim past the tension

to measure the density in the bottom

which doesn't hold oxygen.

The world softly exhales,

reassuring hushes that dance in the willows,

rippling soft breaks into the lake glaze,

and I remember myself,

not as the ever unsettled silt,

but as a shimmer,

the quiet light

that pirouettes atop the breaks,

skating the undulating surface,

a daylight star, sparkling,

that never sinks in.