Hill is the author of a poetry collection, has published widely in literary journals, and is an editor for a university publications department. In the following essay, she examines the poem's reference to Dionysus as an odd, yet poignant allusion in a work that offers no obvious reason for its inclusion.

On its own, “Lake” is an obscure poem in regard to defining its persona and the relationship between the speaker and subject or the subject and the mysterious “they.” But when the poem is considered among the others in Departure, readers can make intelligent guesses about its source of inspiration—the poet is the speaker, the speaker is the subject, and the “they” is the speaker's ailing mother suffering from incurable dementia. Or are they?

In the end, the truth about specific identities makes little difference. What is noteworthy, however, is the intriguing one-time allusion to...