Orienteers tell us walkers in the unmarked wild
circle, I forget, left or right. Lakeside, circling
a forgotten lake that forgets water. I am walking
ahead on that shore uncompassed, I could go down
past the fraying edge, where patterns rise and spread
and another togetherness begins. Lake calls the course,
I will not turn from all it views and is, nor
from the unsought arising unsure at the corner of my eye.
This I walk by, that lives in unfocused attending.

Lake-room is mind enough, a mortal mould.
Another side waits out of sight, it and its weather.
You can walk the lake’s ring in measurable time
mind-size, poem-fit, think a lake inside living.
Run by daylight round it with shortening shadow
to the further shore and surge, running to sunrise.