When I grow strong, I linger in the morning light and bathe freely in the deep waters of the lake. Sometimes there is a cougar with padded paws who creeps up to the water and laps it up. She will glance at me now and then surely wondering what I must be doing, a thing like me. The cougar sniffs the air and wanders back into the tree line. I’m not prey or a threat, I just am, like a ripple, a slick stone covered in moss, like discarded bird bones mixing in the sand.
