Goose armada:
what a
lotta.
Tag Archives: pond
December 20.20: Coping
The pond crackles
on my eyes
as papery floes
epithelialize,
fragile bits
of water skin
turned to diamond,
inchoate, thin.
November 19.20: Coping
All hail the nap!
That mini vacation,
miraculous reset,
arm-chair sedation,
restoring us to
youthful vigor
instead of creeping
mortis rigor.
So, as fugitive from
myself and the news,
I follow example
of the duck group-snooze.
October 11.20: Coping
Is the pond a kaleidoscope,
tumbling, soulless,
into accidental beauty,
or does it
in wistful deliberation
dream itself in Giverny?
April 19.20: Coping
The pond as artist
nonpareil
transience its medium
mystery its spell.
April 18.20: Coping
Philosopher bird,
patient, still,
laser focused
by stoic will,
ignoring slime
between his toes
as raindrops trickle
from his nose.
Waiting is
perfected art
for pondside menu
à la carte.
March 25.20: Coping
The pond always helps me cope. As a body of water, it couldn’t be humbler: a mere retention pond, gunky in the summer, lacking tide and horizon, held in entirety by a few back yards, it is little more than a puffed-up puddle. But I watch it with growing respect and affection. Occasionally I have been weak in the head and have presumed to know it. And then it teaches me I don’t know much.
Case in point: two days ago I spotted what I thought were ducks. Suddenly they were gone and the water was empty. Then they reappeared some place else. I was hallucinating ducks?
Naturally I ran for my camera with its zoom lens. With great ado, I caught a close-up but before I could focus and take a picture they were gone again. Only a flutter of the water remained.
To make an excruciatingly long story short, I ended up with a million bad photos and some time on Google. Now I know there is such a thing as diving ducks. Like quacking submarines: now you see them, now you don’t! And they have wonderful names! I believe mine are buffleheads. I want them to be buffleheads because I want to be able to say I have buffleheads.
I do try to avoid the word “cute,” but I can’t when describing these. As they paddled toward me, they looked like the cutest salt and pepper shakers I ever did see. Next to the mallards, mere toys.
I hope they come back.
March 22.20
The pond mirror
in leaden shinery
tells form
absent finery/
long-leggedy beastie
starkly spindly
twiggy as spring
winter-dwindly.
With thanks to the Bump-In-The-Night prayer.
Full disclosure, dear reader: I changed this post. A few hours after I posted it, different words started to poke around in my head. I didn’t ask for them. They just started bullying me.
November 13.19
Stirred by ducks
the black of winter water
shimmies to silver.
Unaware
(maybe)
they paddle on
turning pond
to Rorschach.
June 23.19
Sunless spring,
summer clogged with mud,
daily outlook darkened
with endless storm and flood,
so rare the light of sunset,
the pond cannot believe its eye,
and stops in breathless wonder
to return it to the sky.
Oddments 