When the satellite was young, it thought only of the way bluegreen oceans slid against sandy brown shores and of how river arteries sliced through dense forest sheen like a lizard darting in haphazard lines though, of course, the satellite had never seen a lizard but it had seen life, and knew the shapes and shades it made unending, uninterrupted, the satellite wanted nothing more than to feast on blue bayous and drink from midnight tributaries as they poured into dusky seas, but once a year the satellite’s course was disrupted, because once a year the satellite had to recalibrate, it had to travel away from life to stillness, a place so static it had the power for instrumental reset, as the young satellite trained its lens on the husk of a place where eons ago water once flowed free, it didn’t think of reprieve, but of banishment, therefore, to distract from the annual deviation, the satellite imagined what this now white, desolate-dry lakebed must’ve been in its glory, a force roaring audible through the plains, a gossamer phantasm that made recalibration tolerable in the early days, then the satellite noticed, appreciated even, how unwavering the lakebed remained year after year, a constant, unending, uninterrupted by a competing landscape or time, it stayed true, so few places were like that, perhaps no other places were like that, over further ages yet the satellite noticed, enjoyed even, how the soft beige at the center of the former lake seemed to explode into a pale border, the water was gone but the movement, the intensity endured, and isn’t that impressive? the satellite thought, isn’t that just a little bit special? in later decades the satellite grew disenchanted with capricious ponds and unreliable lagoons, it began counting the months, then the days left to when it would return to recalibrate, to experience rebirth at the center of it all, to resurface renewed after gazing upon the lakebed so dead it was more alive than any other, the satellite knew not only life but love, and there was nothing more beautiful. Meanwhile, down below, miles away, at a distance too great to fathom, laid the lakebed, looking forward, anticipating, searching, every year, for that extra light that would appear in the sky right above it, winking.