Before the sun, my bare feet find the lake.
Squelch, squirm, squeeze—
mud oozes upward between my toes,
sucks each heel, reluctant to let go.
I lift one foot—
schlupp, sclop, schwip—
the black bed gives it back.
Cold water slithers around my ankles,
clad now in black mud boots.
I become a creature of the swamp,
remembering puddles, bare feet, childhood rain.
The lake holds its breath, curling mine into its own.
Hush. Somewhere in the reeds—
pip—pip—trill, pip—pip—shrill—
a bird threads three small sounds through silence.
A frog answers—chirrup, croak, plop.
I reply—cheep, cheet, cheet—
with tongue, lips and cheek.
Each call tugs a half-remembered morning awake:
yellow pips, green croaks, blue hushes.
The surface flashes silver.
Flies flicker; water striders skitter.
A leaf drops—
plip—ripple—ring—
then a fish rises—
flip, gulp, glup—
a syrup-soft sound swallowed by the surface.
My fingertips touch and tingle,
skin-ripples answering water-ripples,
rings widening into rings.
Dawn breaks like an egg, sunny-side up,
its yolk spilling warmth across the water.
Black becomes blue,
brown bleeds to amber, flares to gold.
Colors seem warm enough to touch.
Gold tastes faintly of honey;
blue still carries the cold.
I breathe in.
Wet bark, crushed reed, dank mud,
moss, straw, a prickle of pine,
bruised herbs beneath my feet,
faint animal smells of poo, pee and bad breath—
Earth refusing to perfume itself sweet for me.
I breathe out.
Mist curls around my breath,
softens it, makes it visible,
then folds my breath into its own.
Memory has a smell, a taste, an echo, a feel, a shape.
Perhaps memory itself is a sense—
an inward organ with no name.
I lick cold dew from my upper lip:
water, salt, something metallic—
blue-steel cold
with a golden, honeyed aftertaste.
And taste remembers:
rain on a childhood tongue,
salt drying after a swim,
the metallic tang of a bitten lip.
Sunrise blooms like a flower,
entering mouth, eyes, ears.
Yellow hums.
Birdsong glitters.
Warmth tastes like gold.
A blue hush touches my shoulders.
Something quiet falls upon me.
Not heard.
Not seen.
Not tasted.
Not smelled.
Not touched.
Yet unmistakably sensed.
A sadness without anything lost;
a longing for what\'s already here;
an awe without an object;
a presence without a shape.
What sense receives this?
No eye opens to it.
No ear catches it.
No fingertip finds its edge.
Yet somewhere inward,
something recognizes something.
Then raucous birds clatter,
wind whips, leaves rattle,
my hair flicks to the chorus.
The lake at dawn is inside me—
and I can no longer tell
whether I am remembering it,
sensing it,
or being sensed by it.
Five senses crossing into one,
then something beyond the five—
a sixth omen without an organ,
the synesthesia of being sensed.