Skidmore

They gilded the underbrush,
those little flowers, odorlessly.
Below them, that gray, still beast
of a lake, hemmed in on all sides
by the imposing rise of the foothills.
Skirting the sharp-toothed hillside,
we dragged the outside edge of the lake,
clambering though brief snags of fruited bushes.
The water lapped weakly at our feet.
We seemed to conquer it, plodding violently
through it's impotent and unmoving sprawl.
Some ways down, we found a small sliver of shore, which cut
around the corner and made a beach of modest size.
Above it, those same flowers
cast a starless net of constellations.
The strand showed us the lake's secret:
that it was man-made, that it's fill
had been carved out and carted away.
The shore was a blood wound,
a scar in the land that wept perpetually
at its own defilement. Suddenly, the lake
took on another look. It was that of a show,
and all around us were players
on a ponderous stage; even those giants
in the distance, herding upwards
the creaseless draping of sky; those flowers,
tiny bright dancers pinned to their breast
as if nothing could escape possession,
as if nothing stood beyond claim.