Thoughts By the Lake

Thoughts by the lake At peace with peace if just for a moment. A lone pigeon calls. The splash of a carp. A call from nature by a plaintive duck Sitting contentedly at my feet. Across the lake a couple sit, Intruding on my silence with muted talk That drifts across the flickering surface Of the lake. They come uninvited but perhaps they too Seek peace together if that exists. Then after a while they leave Followed by a procession of ducks So leaving me in peace again. Two black shapes appear in the lake But a short distance away, Translucent faces gazing upwards, Like death, As it waits in the shadows; Ever present, then gliding slowly Beneath the surface, As it does in the real world. The willows shiver in a breeze that exists, But seemingly doesn't, As there is no apparent movement in the air To caress the face of silence. The warning call of a moor-hen, far to my left, Like a siren, echoing in the stillness. An awareness of things one may not notice On a different day. All these small sounds in the silence, So silence must not, therefore, exist. Not even when one closes one's mind. The quieter it seems, in sight or sound, The more I hear – so, Where do I go for solitude, If only for a moment in time? The quieter the real world, The greater the awareness, And so, What was once silence Is no more.