Evening walk to the water for the nth repeatable time, Beethoven in my earbuds, descending the slant of mid-June light into the stand of aspen—they look like aspen—quivering at the bend in the path to the Northwestern lakefill, a shimmering ephemeral barrier between me and the lake taking out its nightly shade of slate blue. The water is high—the shoreline recedes like the gums on a middle-aged man. A lone duck rides the waves, contemplative—sun elongates the bodies of buoys marking the invisible line between water and waters. We career blindly up—or is it down?—Emerson’s stair. We find—ourselves.