The Lake at Night by Felicity Powell
The Lake at Night
The lake at night is still,
The surface smooth as paper
And black as heaven’s ink.
Stars are written on the water.
I read them from my windowsill.
Sunlight is minutes old,
And faraway lights died long ago.
Stars are memories on the water.
Forget which way is heaven
And lake becomes sky,
Truth becomes myth.
Stars have fallen in the water.
A ripple murmurs through the ink,
As though an angel’s feather
Has fallen upon the surface.
Stars are flying across the water.
Further apart they soar,
The space between them changing;
Neutron, red dwarf, supernova.
Stars evolving on the water
What if every star’s a sun to another world
And someone there is watching me,
Watching the stars on a lake like this?
Stars are suns for different waters.
The lake is black as heaven’s ink.
I sit awake, uncertain,
Not knowing where water ends and sky begins,
Watching the burning memories
Of long-extinguished stars.
Felicity Powell was highly commended in the Young Adults category of the NCLA’s Water Poetry Competition 2012.
The NCLA Water Poetry Competition was judged by W.N. Herbert and John Burnside. The ceremony was held at Northern Stage on 23rd February 2012.
Photographs of the event can be viewed here.
NCLA Water Poetry Competition website.
A note from Felicity Powell on writing this poem: ‘Living in the Lake District, I am always struck by the vastness of the clear night sky over the water, the lakes so still that there seems to be no boundary between sky above and water below, the stars mirrored between them. Yet it is not still: stars are constantly moving and changing their form, and so far away that their light takes hundreds of years to reach us. Scientists have calculated that the starlight we are seeing would have first been emitted during Shakespeare’s lifetime. For all we know, those stars could have exploded already; it will take us centuries to see the supernova. That to me is a fantastic thought.’