I have often looked at the dryer lake and thick green grass and wondered what it would be like to run it—to step out into it and go. This day, instead, I walk with a small group of mostly family out onto what is a kind of island or spit during the wetter months, but now a dryland edge of the north-east corner. My companions sit by what in winter would be the lake’s edge, grass now lapping against the shore, somehow still held back by this once high-tide line. I get up at one point, and take a few steps out into it—out amongst the grass—thinking snakes would be avoiding the heat of the day, or else preparing somewhere drier for winter to come. I don’t go too far—a few paces maybe—and am surprised to see an immediate up-surging of life. With each step a little flurry of white-winged moths (or maybe butterflies—small winged insects in any case). I take another step, and more fly up out of the depths of the stems of grass, then fall back into it again. Another step, another puff of small, white, flying life. Even now, amongst all this dryness, all this death— the life of the lake.