The parking lot for the Hidden Lake is a mile north of the Interstate,
Just past the Veterans’ Cemetery.
Wind a mile further or so past the map at the entrance that doesn’t show the newest connecting trails,
Past the roofless cinderblock farmhouse with trees grown up through its dirty floor,
Up, and Over the concrete dancefloor poured during prohibition that overlooks the graveless lawns that hopefully field the outskirts of the cemetery,
And beyond the empty train car that someone must have hauled up here as a joke, or on a dare, or as part of the scheme to conceal consumption of liquors untaxed and unlawful,
And there is the Hidden Lake.
Cut stone walls shear up from a quarry missing a lake’s worth of rock,
And the muddy trail around invites enfoliaged visitors to appreciate it from each side.
Is this a legacy?
Things taken and took from nature, reclaimed and repurposed?
Is this vacation pit more impressive than the all the blocks that were taken from it and have since crumbled?
There are no plaques riveted to the benches extolling, “look upon my works, ye leisurely, and relax!”
Though the stapled paper at the trailhead warns in laminate: “valuables must not be left in vehicles.”
The stewards of this place have seen things taken,
And this place is open to the sky.
Laugh at me.