Richardson, Susan

English

SWOSU Digital Commons (Southwestern Oklahoma State University)

Volume 16Issue 1 Fall/Winter Article 3011-15-1996The Lake that Grew Out of a Well, Denver 1861Susan RichardsonFollow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/westviewThis Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals atSWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Westviewby an authorized administrator of SWOSU Digital Commons. For moreinformation, please contact phillip.fitzsimmons@swosu.edu.Recommended CitationRichardson, Susan (1996) "The Lake that Grew Out of a Well, Denver 1861," Westview: Vol. 16 : Iss. 1 , Article 30.Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/westview/vol16/iss1/30T he  L a k e  t h a t  G r e w  Ou t  of a W e l l  De n v e r  1861Imagine a man, Mr. Sloan, waking up one day,the day Sloans Lake was born,thinking he still owned the land on which he lived.Proud of it. Lifting his spade from the corner of his shed, hefting it onto his shoulder to keep the sun, just come up, out of his face,whistling down the brown slope where the well should go, gauging with his eyes the best spot, and cutting in, lifting up that fresh ground.And lifting up some more.Pitching it over his side.Building a sizable pile.Soon water bubbles up, hesitant.The next morning, a large pool.Mr. Sloan stands near its wobbly edge,scratching his wonderstruck head.And scratching it some more.Over the weeks, the lake grows, gently—The underground spring waiting eons for an outlet finds one in the slice of a spade.And takes its time, not wanting to turn to shockwhat it must have known would be at least surprise. To watch a well become a giant lake.To watch a wide depression, previous buffalo stomp,track where Indian ponies raced, long last stretch of stagecoach line, fill up its bowl-rimmed sides.Mr. Sloan vacates his house before the waterlaps its porch. With his pioneer humor sense, he relents, giving up to higher purpose the land he thought he owned, though all he might envisionIllustration by Henry Muench44 W e s  m W  i e Wwould be rowboats or canoes, a swimming hole,skating in winter, eventual stocked trout,not steamboats, amusement parks, theaters, zoos,acres of picnic grass, summer concerts, concessions, even brothels and saloons. Still he’s more willing to attach his name to a lakethan to a piece of land sown in beans or wheat likely to be wiped out every other year by hoards of locust or by drought,to something sprawling, less containedthan a brick-walled well, lake constantly tappingits changeable edge. Mr. Sloan, no longer farmer,follows the lake’s example, expanding himself like a hot-air balloon. He harvests the lake’s ice, chunking it out during the cold winter monthsand storing it, large sawdust marshmallows, in a shore-built ice-house. Those cubes end up in breweries as far as Cheyenne, besides cooling offthe local folk. Had he lived, old Sloan may have become a geological surveyor or celebrated pastry chef.As it was, he could only stand on the sandbardividing Cooper Lake from the lake of his own name and dream of marrying up those sister waterways, broadening Sloans, creating an islandfor a permanent colony of then-migrating ducks, ducks the kids could fatten with dried out bread, year-round harvest, roasted and succulent.by Susan RichardsonW e s  i e W 4 5

The Lake that Grew Out of a Well, Denver 1861

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The Lake that Grew Out of a Well, Denver 1861

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