HOW OWN A LAKE

A child begins owning

the lake,

its lifting haunt in morning,

its sun-slapped birds. Begins

to own the rud

that coats evening,

sunsets hinged

behind the gap to the west. Begins

owning the islet that floats offshore,

boulder-pinned.

     She upends smaller stones,

plucks innocent snails. She claims

the islet’s frogs and the ribbits of frogs,

moves the stirring lumps.

     Owns the waves

and the far shore that looses them. Owns

water lilies bobbing beneath the far-end bridge,

yards them out, lays them in layers

on the rowboat’s wet floor.

She owns water weeds that yank at her feet,

tadpoles butting, which she collects, black leeches,

which she salts.

And the monastery across the lake,

which she can’t see, does she own it as well?

And the reservation across the lake,

completely unknown? 

The duck blind near the point, she claims.

And lapping sounds.

And darning needles

switching blue, and rapiers of grass,

the briny pong, the smart of slime that chokes

the small elbowed bay.

And the lake. The lake

    begins owning

the child, carves its winged shape

into her young,

green-stick bones, into places there

where holiness will soak,

and a loneliness she can’t hope to shake.