The Beast Fable

The lake only takes what the lake
Already owns. Expect nothing
Else accepted, pollution excepted.

Human behavior and weakness
Are subject to scrutiny by reflection.
The lake is an allegorist, but not

Like other fabulous creatures
A moralist. Surfaces
And depths coalesce, trade places.

It is a mind that remembers what
Its thought forgets. The water
Churns and returns; the clouds

External to the forever of waves
Determine the appearances,
Grim or smiling, fallacious,

And then become internalized
As rain. A performance, utterance,
Washer of great logs and detritus

Down, the rain restores the lake,
Taking snows and ice along,

But while the water comes and goes,

All the logs and detritus, mostly all,
The lake pushes aside to the shore.
That which the lake loves well

The lake holds dear, the memory
Of forgetting things, never recovering
The bodies at the bottom of the mind.