[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 118 (Friday, July 31, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S8631]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         COMMENDING DAVID LUSK

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to inform the Senate about a 
Vermonter whose work has been a unique and meaningful contribution to 
the Burlington International Waterfront Festival, a celebration of the 
400th anniversary of French explorer Samuel de Champlain's arrival at 
Lake Champlain. Vermont poet David Lusk is using his craft to recreate 
experiences that are inspired by the surrounding Vermont communities, 
the lake's natural history, the more than 300 documented shipwrecks, 
and the rare prehistoric artifacts that lie on the lake's floor. Mr. 
Lusk's poems also draw from maritime literature and his visits to the 
shipwrecks that he has taken with guides from the Lake Champlain 
Maritime Museum. He intends to create a collection of poems called 
``Lake Studies: Meditations on Lake Champlain.'' Mr. Lusk says the 
poems strive to ``reflect our mutual associations with these mysteries 
and to suggest something of our own psychological complexity in the 
process.''
  Below is a poem that Mr. Lusk shared with those attending the opening 
ceremony at the Burlington Waterfront on July 2, 2009, for the 
celebration of the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain's 
explorations. I ask that the text of his poem be printed in the Record.

                         Sunset on Mallet's Bay

                            (By David Lusk)

     For just an instant
     as the sun reclines
     between wooly clouds
     and profound, lavender
     pillows of the mountains

     a flock of sheep
     will appear to cross
     the glimmering road
     of iridescent silver
     creasing the broad back
     of the lake.

     See--here they come,
     the little sheep,
     huddled together, afraid.
--for L.J. and Beth

                          ____________________