River and Lake

My lake is boring you: its stagnant mystery
unmoves in time, recalcitrant;
it holds a featureless wind-ruffled obscurity
that skirts around the hidden words you want.
If you could only see through fading light
a silent world away, my secrets stirred
to starry rings when depths disclose at night;
and hear, among the reeds, my whispered word.
You'd rather have the river's silly babbling,
a chatter of stones, muscling under willows,
every bend a new momentum dazzling
in sinuous rills and thrilling through shallows.
But when you crave its mesmerizing undertow
consider lakes that source a river's flow.