At Lake Hope Hearing the Ice Voice

from Field Stones
by Robert Kinsley

The ice breaks under its own weight,
sounding out its blue notes, the temperature warm
after a long cold spell. I want to move and moan
again as this lake does with its liquid mouth,
water as counterbalance to the dust around us.

Here in early spring solid in my own dustings,
I walk the path that circles the lake,
listening to that voice, as if it offered advice,
as if it knew the way to side step another difficult
mistake, already the undersurface, fragile and
clear, thins, and thins, cracks
forming in all directions.