Deep Lake is narrow, long, an ancient place, walled in by shadowed, time-worn palisades, whose angled faces now are mossy green. Wisps of wind whisper the aspen’s leaves. Faint fluting drifts from distant sagebrush canyons, played by people still remaining here, though now evicted from their native homes. Now, a group of new adventurers sees rocky cliffs, way high above the lake, an opportunity to fly, exulting in the loud explosive crash as they break through the startled water's surface, shattering the rippling reflection of pink clouds, edgeless in a pale-blue wash of sky. I sit, aware of aching knees, and try to find a place of ease on broken scree, a spot that does not thwart my wish to be welcomed by a world as it should be. I wonder, would the cliff jump hurt my knees? A lone merganser, slender, paddles slowly through the end of day; the evening’s haze descends, diffusing the sun’s now weakening gaze. Is it prudence, or becoming stiff? I, too, used to jump from rocky cliffs.