The disappearing lake

I had promised to register Countryside Island, which was created in the wilds of Drury by Friday night's flood and soon explored, flagged, and named by my sons, with the Geographical Board. By Sunday afternoon, though, the lake that framed the island had disappeared.

Kendrick Smithyman had a bit to say about disappearing lakes:

You follow me: I talk of what we have
and have not, of a sandhill lake
which comes and goes. Or maybe, came and went
since when I was last probing there
forestry men and engineers intent
on reform were then debating
how best to right an aberrant nature. 

Maps could not properly cope
with it. It was offence to natural
justice, natural right, and law. 

It came and went. Worse, it was essential
when not existent. Boundaries
tentatively it had, often flouted.
It had? Check my legal fiction.
Rather, they had. Sometimes three lakes flaunted
themselves, sometimes two, or only
one, or none. Not only sands were on move, 

lake dissolved, moved, reappeared,
will dwindle, again quicken. In remove
a presence, in presence a fact
substantial, insubstantial form
no less? This play with arid words,
dry as lake beds where cloudy midges swarm
until extinguished, dunes made
to conform to rational order and
rabid, but useful, their surgent pines
established turn to increase wayward sand...