Member Poem

Do old weathered trunks
of trees with no leaves
mean the entire lake is shallow?
Are old weathered thoughts
surfacing in my poems,
without frills and flourishes?
They won’t bear fruit
or attract animals to live within.
They will just slowly age and decay.
There are so many
the lakebed must have been exposed
and receptive to the seeds,
the start of many ideas.
The withered stems rise
so high above the water now,
some towering over the others,
some bent and craggy,
others broken and stunted.
They once had a chance to grow,
a once sprawling forest
brought to a halt
by an abundance of resources,
flooded by more water and experience
than it could ever handle.
The naked gray signposts
break up the placid view.
The water flows around them,
merely small obstacles in the overall expanse.