Burn Lake

For Burn Construction Company

When you were building the i-10 bypass,

one of your dozers, moving earth

at the center of a great pit,

slipped its thick blade beneath

the water table, slicing into the earth’s

wet palm, and the silt moistened

beneath the huge thing’s tires, and the crew

was sent home for the day.

Next morning, water filled the pit.

Nothing anyone could do to stop it coming.

It was a revelation: kidney-shaped, deep

green, there between the interstate

and the sewage treatment plant.

When nothing else worked, you called it

a lake and opened it to the public.

And we were the public.

Notes:

Source: Poetry (September 2013)