Lying on the surface of the lake I watch
tops of the trees sparkle in conversation
with the wind. Poplars flutter, hundred hands
gesticulate with jewels and appreciation;
White Pine needles in baleen rank, go,
then stay, comb and sway, sift their stories
and prayers, from native Northern airs;
Silver Maple leaves chatter, surge, one the other
after, make the opinion of each other known;
Cedar placates and shushes, “don’t listen,” hushes,
“where there’s wind, the whirlwind is sown.”

Each voice adds to the whisper rushing, building from
quiet roar to moan mouthing, washing back and forth
where wind and tree tops have merged into … whatever,
no, never, you said, they said, the ripples eddy and echo.

I listen, and hear a murmur of delight in the ignorance of trees,
each foolish branch twig needle leaf trunk root not knowing
how they only reflect the sound of the water that laps at their shore,
and me? I shimmer on the surface of a lake that is laughing.

for Lake Kashagawigamog

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