The Voice at Mirror Lake

Timothy Hill

From the geese-shit-stained asphalt path the lake looks muddy steel.

Students pass by  

glazed by the cloudless spring sky.

I see them travel in packs.

Have they looked upon

this thorny-crowned meniscus too,

and found something beyond a lake?

Some with throats hunched,

earbuds hung over hums

of drumming cars on 195.

Others are couplets with  

casuals remarks.

This place feels

upon

Mirror 

A piercing freedom.

Navy American waves:

liberty, justice, 

loyalty to an unknown God

Yet—

 closer now—

undredged, forlorn muck.

I’ve seen that same stagnant reflection

for four years here.

I’m sorry—

I write in abstractions.

I wasn’t taught how to think

without hard work.

solitary. Too solitary

for a busy campus.

It’s hard to look at the

periphery.

I look 

Lake.

I am going to graduate soon.

I followed every instruction.

I swing from believing,

that all my work 

will pay off, 

to considering it all 

without worth.

Does anyone consider this violence?

Corpses of shed leaves:

furloughed in autumn’s past.

Drab cattail shorelines.

Rhizomed rotten dirt.

The cascading heaven above

can’t disguise this brown.

A stagnant cemetery—

only released by UConn’s hydraulic hand.

A single concrete channel—

to brooks below.

at cracked black tar

bounded by loose cobble,

kicked at the edges.

I’ve come here

They encounter lakes and forests;

They write in real time;

They walk on unblurred lines.

What is that voice?

Violence against the marsh that once

grew here?

Cryptocurrency in rural towns.

Plastics down to our planet’s pores.

Bucolic as a screensaver.

I don’t mean to sound naturalistic,

but getting on honor roll

can’t fix this.

Maybe I should have studied 

civil engineering, or business management.

Or construction, so that when I look

I would think only about its 

sturdiness and necessity,

not for signs of interpolation.

because that’s what all great poets do.

I can only gaze behind.

I speak with stolen rhymes.

I lied.

I don’t even think I’m a good poet.

The one that tests how far my attention fits.

The one that lectured diligence was morality.

The one that presents over every image.

The one that certifies how to be human.

What is that voice?

Mirror Lake reflects back.

I still don’t know who speaks in my head.

I don’t know how to undam

this lake.

So I say nothing at all. 

I am going to graduate soon.

The expectations of who I was meant to be

as a student,

as a person,

as a worker:

I wasn’t ever shown how.

I don’t want to keep looking.

I have things to do today.

Everyday.

And sometimes there’s too much

to say...