Solstice Lake, Shimmering

92 total words    

<1 minutes of reading

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.

—Confucius

Sun knotted
low, shooting June
rays across cove.
We speak of water,
sky. Sun unfurling
upon lake—silver
trail so spangled
Sarah nearly steps
from dock to
water. This phenomenon
of water-light laid
across breeze-tussled
cove was named
by a Soviet scientist:
The path to happiness.

Does the naming
of a thing make it
more or less
mysterious? What
might we lose
if the two of us
forgot names, definitions,
taxonomies, the lessons
of Linnaeus, and just
walk upon water?

  • Sean Prentiss

    Sean Prentiss is the award-winning author of Finding Abbey: A Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave, a memoir about Edward Abbey and the search for home. He and his family live on a small lake in northern Vermont, and he teaches at Norwich University and in the MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

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