Fort Worth Lake, Despite the Din

Dan Williams

December 11, 2022

Despite the din and drone of highway,

and beyond the human sprawl, the clustered

lake houses and docks, there’s persistence

out on the water, a world of reed and mud

bank too shallow for bass boats and jet skis,

where mallards and cormorants gather,

and egrets and cranes hunt, hugging the quiet

shoreline, the edge between lake and city,

to slip into these areas, an infinite spectrum,

color, shade, sunlight, and prospect, humbles

with rare privilege, when watching a kingfisher

fish, hovering, then darting, or a pair of ospreys

circle in the updrafts, and by chance, an eagle

perched high on a branch, watching for the glint

of silver, the Great Blues and most of the Great

Whites remain skittish at human approach, too

great the residual, instinctual memory of shotgun

pellets, but sometimes a slow, silent paddle

allows a closer glimpse, and the fierce eyes

watch, ready to take flight and indignantly

squawk at the disturbance, to know water,

that marginal world, and congregate among

the birds, requires homage, praise, and prayer.

Dan Williams is the Director of TCU Press and the TCU Honors Professor of Humanities. His second collection of poems, At the Gate, A Refuge of Sunflowers and Milkweed, is from Lamar University Literary Press.