Dry Lake at Evening

That calm that comes when there’s nothing
To be done. That’s the one. You think it is
Always momentary, and it is, but it is not
Necessarily. It could be the ground, mostly

Underwater, most of your existence, only
Emerging visibly during droughts of options
Behind dams of bodily limitations. Then,
When you have forgotten what waits under,

Maybe even have come to shudder to think
Of what sits on the bottom, beneath it all,
It comes back into the light, homely, beaten
Into ridges by the stages of receding shore,

But not horrific. Not horrible at all. Plain dirt
Of something somehow aware of being,
The calm when there is nothing to be done.
That’s the one. That’s the ground of the lake.