A Low Bank of Cloud

         clear morning,    empty sky.

The bright band of light beneath  the cloud’s gray

       I thought at first was open distance,    but it’s ice

that by extension raised the lake above the lip of blue lake

       and spilled it farther out than that horizon

along the sky

       and floods the clouds.

      Seeing the distant level further

unfurl into the sky says not to trust

      blue line as terminus

when a meniscus of ice

       can ride up that wall of the skyline,

a measure of illusion how close

       the eye can be to filled

with seeing,        to widen instead the tube of that measure

of sight we are given.        There is the larger

        lake the wider look we open

eyes to see. That glance of the lip

        put in a bigger cylinder falls away,

but how much deeper the spring

       to fill the cup.

As if the surface we are seeing

        drops          the more seeing is added,

       while we feel the stories well as our height

from which to see.         And watch the dawns coming.

…I seem to be emptying

of time        the more time I put in,

       and see like a man with weathered eyes enough

to face to face up   to the sight’s field expanded

       to insight.    To the dark the lake can turn

and curl up like a map for poems to have

these likenesses to graph,

        then come un-scrolled from semblance back

to just this lake.        Water

       cities are led to        layout

beside.      But never in stillness;

       always the restoration to change,

from ice, from cloud, turning to clear

        liquid—as is most of our body

        water—       thinned sheet, layer

that if written        on or with,         a bearing

a name chiseled on water

       disappears.