Loving A Lake Is Easy

After Tom Hennen

Loving a lake is easy
but try to hate the water,
the glisten of sun on top,
how refreshing the skin feels
on cloudless warm days,
the way ripples form
out of nowhere
just like the breeze
that pushes them along.
Think of the Greats,
how much they resemble
the ocean, any ocean
with no shore in sight.
Cling to that endlessness—
it holds our memories,
our summers, our relief
from weariness.
Remember to love it
when the cold
freezes us in time.

Stephanie Schultz is a graphic designer and writer. Her poems have recently appeared in Midway Journal and the Vermillion Literary Project and are forthcoming in South Dakota Magazine and Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America. She received her MFA in creative writing from Hamline University and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she is perpetually training for her next marathon.