Visible Unreal

[plumtreeblossom]

We see the lake
a mile or two away
in the flat, orange distance.
A lake with a bridge
spanning its length.
Out here? That's strange.

Getting closer,
it's too perfect, too even.
Maybe it's a reservoir.

Closer still...
first the bridge melts
away into the horizon,
then the lake itself.
Vanishing vapors.

I marvel. "We saw a mirage! A real mirage!"

Then a see-saw quandary conversation:
There can be no such thing
as a real mirage.
A mirage, by its nature
is an illusion. Opposition to the factual.
"Real mirage" is an oxymoron.

Physics and Lexicon hunch over the chessboard...
How to name the experience of something that isn't?

We can not truly say that we saw the mirage,
because it was not there.
Only rock and yellow heat,
now two miles behind us.

Fine then.
We did not see
the unreal lake mirage
that was not there.

But we did.

-MF