Goose Lake

Hi everyone,

A reminder about my own e-book, GOOSE LAKE. I continue to enjoy the experience and enjoy it even more when someone purchases a copy. I don’t think I’ve posted this section of prose followed by poem from the collection. If I have, I hope you like it (again). Click the cover on the left for Amazon.com. The one on the right takes you to Barnes & Noble. Tell a friend.

What Was That?
David L. Harrison

If the lake were a mouth wide open to swallow sky and popcorn clouds, the narrow strip of land stretched tightly around it would be its lips. Seeds planted by wind and obliging birds sprout tangled gardens of saplings, and weeds run amok. In rocky places, stones shoulder to shoulder wear sunbathing turtles like bronze helmets.

The lips of the lake never sleep. Life and death meet in the twisted underbrush where herons stand like statues of herons awaiting the unwary. A kingfisher that looks like it needs a haircut watches the shallows for a minnowy snack.

Geese defiant with motherhood hiss away foxes with a hankering for gosling. Finches flit from limb to bank, ignoring sleepy-eyed bullfrogs that need their rest till sundown.

Ducks catapult into the water
and herons’ legs trail like kite tails
in their sudden flight to
somewhere safer.

Flat shells smack the lake.
Bony heads resurface,
stare at their forsaken thrones.

What was that?

Maybe nothing.

A dog barked,
a child ran,
a turtle slipped.

All’s clear
on the lip of the lake,
for now.