So vibrant when varied, like a rainbow’s
flanks, with scales of algae, red and green.
Lake—a mineral trove which bakes and grows
so dry and salty—its great worth foreseen
by Wasatch gleaners trapping silt. So keen
to soak the desert’s worth in bathing rites,
life adores this sloughing lake bed—its sheen,
a looking glass for gorging dust mites. They
crawl upon the skin to feed on flakes of -ites.

Poet’s Notes

This stanza came about after viewing the featured image, a photograph of the Great Salt Lake taken this summer by an astronaut on the International Space Station. An explanatory caption is available on NASA’s Earth Observatory webpage. I’ll also say I arrived at the rhyme scheme by way of the mites/-ites couplet, which for me references 4 Nephi 1:17.

If you’d like to try more verse prompted by photos taken from space, try The Unwanted Leaf Poem. Thank you for reading. Comments are welcome below.