On the lake

On the lake

The woman in the lake, on the island in the lake,
among the trees, unseen,
a gentle movement like wings,
calls across the water,

to the man by the lake,
who stares at the island in the lake
with narrowed eyes, imagines
a winged woman, trailing veils of gauze.

She calls with the voice of birds,
the low guttural caress of furred things,
the murmur of leaves and water,

and he hears the song of birds,
the bark of a hind, the lapping of lake water,
the wind in the leaves,
but not what they say,

because the moon is rising and will set in the west,
the stars point their bright fingers towards the place,

and the trees shake their hair in the wind
that ruffles the water of the lake,
roosting blackbirds cluck uneasily, ruffle-feathered.

Go back, says the woman on the island in the lake,
to your bloodied halls, the clash or arms,
the coarse laughter of your men.
By your side is no place for me.

The man by the lake, wades deeper
through the reeds, through the rising wind
and the night birds’ cries, and he shouts
at the night, at the woman’s moon,

his bitter words of women’s faithlessness,
his empty threats, while the moon rises,
the waves rise, and push him homeward
in the laughter of the wind.