Kate Moss Gamblin - Lake

Remembering C.E.T. (Tim) and S.C. (Steve) Moss, with love. KMG

For Michael, always. KP

Kate Moss Gamblin

Pictures by

Karen Patkau

GROUNDWOOD BOOKS

HOUSE OF ANANSI PRESS

TORONTO BERKELEY

Lake

A See to Learn Book

What do you see when you see a lake?

Do you see, through great pine pillars, the moving, shimmering water?

Do you see how the wind, ruffling the water and our hair, over time shapes the pine growing at lakes edge?

Do you see all the winged visitors, the dragonfly and hummingbird wings

beating swift enough to hover, swoop and dart?

Do you see the water striders rowing atop the living water, as a school of lake trout swim alongside you and me?

Do you see that countless generations of creatures share the water, its still surface reflecting the ever-changing seasons?

Do you see, under these sheltering willow branches, the swan and her cygnets, their feathers

lightening through their first autumn, only their feet busy below?

Do you see this crimson leaf fallen on the water marker of the turning season a tiny red canoe on its journey toward the sea?

Do you see the water leaving the lake in silvery tumbles near a bevy of playful otter cubs?

Do you see the morning mist rising to clouds, as it does above lakes the world over, later returning as droplets or snow

snow that feathers all around us?

Do you see a gaggle of curious young goslings, learning to land on firm ice that just yesterday they were able to drink?

Do you see ice protecting life in the heart of the deep lake until the warm days of spring?

Do you see the season for snowshoes melting away as the tamarack sprouts its springtime coat, the red squirrel finds

its mate, and moose calves wade through fiddleheads uncurling?

Do you see the trees, dark against the indigo sky, embracing the lake? They stand, quietly at their starlit work, putting the day to bed.

Do you see the lake and trees together, awaiting the flash of the rising sun?

What do you see when you see a lake?

Authors Note

The See to Learn series points young readers and their adult co-readers toward the wonder of the natural world as an impetus for a deeper relationship with ourselves and our environment. Spending time quietly in nature can reveal the richness of inter- connection between each of us and the many elements around us. Heart solace arises through this sense of connection and of being held in much larger frames than we ordinarily imagine, and is a key aspect of shaping an inner environmental compass.

Direct connection with our natural world is also a gateway to a broader style of perception: our sustainability perspective, moving us beyond our usual spheres of concern about time, place and relationship. There is both a precious transience to time the single tawny autumn of a cygnet, or that particular stage in a young trouts life as a parr and an enduring qual- ity, as seen through prevailing winds gradually shaping a pine tree. Possibilities abound for exploring relationships in tightly defined groups of young animals such as cygnets, goslings or calves, and through the diversity of life included in the collective nouns of school, gaggle and bevy of beings.

Our imaginations are solution innovators, awake in the very young and endlessly available with practice throughout our lives. Our minds eye helps us perceive different times and places mist that will later return as rain, or dawns fresh spark at any given moment on our planet and guides our everyday choices. Imbued with greater kindness, patience and trust in ourselves and in others, our choices shape our individual and collective future on a planet that is both finite and enough.