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I have lived a block and a half from Lake Wingra, the smallest of Madison's lakes, for twenty-five years. Sunrise there is my favorite time and place on the planet.

DEEDED AND TITLED

Photograph by Molly Fifield Murray

Loosely I call it 'my lake'
though under no pretense
of ownership; it is rather
this place that claims me -- this water
which calls me to its edge, these paths
which ask for my feet, this rock
which has become my listening place, these trees
which gather me in -- a horizontal gravity
strongest at dawn
and at dusk. Of no note or value
to others, nonetheless
my
home
land.

©1999 Kathy Dodd Miner