LAKE LOUISE

LAKE LOUISE

They call her Louise because her eyes
shine blue, ice blue, so choked they are
with granite motes unmoored by life's relentless forces.


They call her Louise because she kneels
without rising, her face flat and open to the powerful
shoulders battling over her passive form.


They call her Louise because her beauty fills the frame,
and in it you can hear the slow crack as ancient bergs
calve glaciers into her waiting arms.


Gazing on her beauty, men whisper the names of their first loves,
women blink against the light, and children hold their breath.
They do not say she is a mirror to their soul; they just call her Louise.


A friend's breathtaking vacation pictures inspired this poem several years ago.  Catbird has dreamed of Lake Louise ever since.  In fact, Lake Louise is one of the main reasons Catbird signed on for this trip.

Imagine Catbird's disappointment, then, to arrive at Lake Louise and find it not only frozen over (which we expected) but also covered with several feet of snow.  No beautiful blue.  No reflection of the soul.  No mirror for the mountains.  Just white and more white.

Lake Louise

To further crumble romantic notions, we discovered that--instead of the beautiful mysterious woman Catbird had imagined as the genesis of the lake's name--Louise was the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria.  Originally, the indigenous people called it Lake of Small Fishes, then the first Europeans renamed it Emerald Lake, both for obvious reasons.  And somewhere along the line, in a politically expedient move it became Lake Louise. 

Now if Catbird had been thinking with her head, instead of dreaming and imagining, she'd have realized LL would be snow-covered.  She'd have figured the name Louise was a political appointment.  She isn't sorry for the dreams and romantic notions that brought her this far, and she still holds the notion of that glorious blue reflection, even if she didn't get to see it.  But Catbird did have to set those aside in order to enjoy the reality of Lake Louise today, which included some lovely hiking and the powerful crash of an avalanche. Metaphor for life, anyone?

Trail above Lake Louise, toward Mirror Lake