Nature Speaks

The lake is never empty, even when it looks so.

I stand at the edge and let the water take the first word. It comes in small, deliberate waves, as if practising restraint. Beside me, my dog steps forward without asking permission. He trusts what he cannot see. The shallows accept him; the depths keep their counsel.

This place has learned patience.

It has outlived the hands that shaped the fields, the voices that named the hills, the footsteps that crossed its frozen skin in harder winters than this one. Beneath the surface, there is a longer memory moving – colder, darker, uninterrupted. Life does not announce itself down there; it continues.

I think of all that has slipped quietly into this water: seasons, tools, breath, intention. People whose names are no longer spoken still lean here, in a way. Others will return – not as they were, but as part of the ongoingness of it all. The lake holds them without preference.

Standing here, I notice how easily the mind wants to simplify – to measure, to label, to conclude. But the lake refuses that kind of attention. It asks for something slower, wider. A way of seeing that allows mystery to remain intact. When I stop trying to grasp it, the scene opens. The water becomes not an object but a presence. Not a surface, but a depth with a surface temporarily laid over it.

Fragility is everywhere. In the cold that reddens my hands. In the thin light skimming the hills. In the way my dog’s paws hesitate, then commit. And yet – life goes on. Not loudly. Not heroically. Simply, faithfully.

The lake does not promise safety. It offers continuity.

It says: things pass, and still something holds.

I turn back eventually. My companion follows, water-darkened, content. Behind us, the lake resumes its quiet work – keeping what cannot be seen, returning what can.