Reflection on the Lake

Poems by Jianqing Zheng and Photos by William Ferris

Editor’s note: Line spacing becomes distorted on a mobile device, so I recommend reading these poems and viewing the accompanying photos on a desktop computer. You can read Jianqing Zheng’s Rooted Questionnaire here.

Wes Carter Lake, Warren County, Mississippi, 1974. Photograph by William Ferris, William R. Ferris Collection, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, used by permission, with all rights reserved.

Reflection on the Lake

       —William Ferris’s Wes Carter Lake, Warren County, Mississippi

It is a ripple of light and shadow
that deforms something 
or nothing in the breeze.

Even the clouds floating leisurely
need a moment to immerse 
their white robes in water.

Snapping shots by the lake,
I catch a moment of reflection
on the lake of the mind.

What's visual may not be
what's seen by the mind's eye.
In a sense, existence

is a state of nonexistence,
time is timeless, 
and root is rootless.

The reflection on the lake
dims out when the sun dips 
into its reflection, into darkness.