Lake Lanier

It is not a natural lake,
It was made for pleasure’s sake:
For speedboaters, and those who swish
On water skis. It’s stocked with fish.
Its waters are not clear, but brown.
Every summer, children drown,
Or teenagers, addled with beer
And showing off, along a pier,
Push each other in, or dive,
And are not seen again alive.
Even sober grown-ups taught
In scuba diving can get caught 
In a submerged tree or vine,
Or tangled in old fishing line.

There are those who tell me down
At the bottom is a town,
Flooded years and years ago:
Houses, and a Texaco.
Somewhere a cemetery lies.
How could it be otherwise?
Yet I wonder of those dead
(All that water overhead),
Who were buried underground:
Can ghosts swim? Or are they drowned,
Sinking slowly in the mud,
While in the treetops fishes scud,
And through the murky heavens floats
The shadow of the pleasure boats?