The White Lake

The White Lake exists because the lava sealed a river, which is the kind of violent origin story that produces, eight millennia later, perfect calm. Water to the hills, birds working the shallows, light doing its long evening arithmetic across the surface.

I stood at the shore with my hands in my pockets and did nothing at all for the better part of an hour, which for me is an achievement requiring documentation, hence this post.

The Niva rested. I rested. The lake, which has been resting since the Holocene, showed us both how it is done. Tomorrow the long turn east toward the capital. Tonight, the stillest water of the trip.