Ashes

Written for dVerse Prosery – Luminous
Accountings. Our host, Dora, invites us
to write a piece of prose in no more than
144 words incorporating the following
line from “King of the River” by Stanley
Kunitz: “…and the iridescent image
swims through a mirror that flows.”

The lake had a way of forgetting things at dusk. She stood at the dock with her father’s compass in her hand, the metal warm from her pocket, and watched the water take the last light. Under the surface, a heron’s elongated reflection appeared, bent awkwardly, like something trying to remember how to be a bird.

She had come here to scatter her father’s ashes. That was the promise she’d made on that last day …. a promise she kept repeating on the drive up, past the old gas station with the ubiquitous flickering sign, past the turnoff she almost took out of habit.

The wind moved across the lake, and the iridescent image swims through a mirror that flows. She let go of the compass. It didn’t sink so much as arrive.

NAR©2026

This is “Compass” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Prosery—Luminous Accountings

^{Everything on the elephant trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicate, and may not be used without permission. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.}