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The Lake

Smoothed by sleep and ruffled by your dreams

The surface of the little lake

Fed by unconscious tributary streams,

Unbroken by the breezes nightmares make,

Like your face looks fathomless and seems

Bottomless till light or noises wake.

You move and murmur and almost awake.

I admire but do not wish to enter,

Like any wanderer beside

Moonlit water in midwinter

Who as a simulacrum for the tide

Casting a pebble into the calm centre

Watches the circles spread from side to side.

I wait for you and morning at your side.

Such sources feed the mirror of your mind,

I dare not touch the surface of your sleep.

But to love by ignorance resigned,

Infatuated guardian, I keep

Watch beside a fountain where I find

No image, for images too deep,

Above your breathing regular and deep.

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