Minnows. The lake is clear and cold with warm pockets near the surface and it’s dark blue from up the hill but here in the water it is just the colour of sand below me beige and rippled and soft past the smooth stones which are just at the shore in the shallow water I put my bum on the sandbar leaning on my elbows with my toes floating which look paler than my pale skin outside the water where the minnows live and they come to quickly nibble my toes tickling as the sun bounces off the bottom of the lake and makes the little fish shine and I count twenty before swimming is done and we go back inside to get out of the hot burning afternoon sun. Image by: Ramon Fernandez F. 

                                                                  as a group, we are the worst                                                                     there is so much that we cannot see.
so many living things we cannot hear when they whisper
from the muck beneath our boots
how is it that humans became
the dominant species
when we are simultaneously the most selfish and lazy creatures?
How can we embrace
change
effort
discomfort
work
when we have created such a cushy throne upon which to kill
ourselves
and everything else?