One Last Pond Song

One Last Pond Song

Old pond master thank you __ I mean your highs and your lows
flattened cord grass gleams __ gulls glare in the shallows

to be empty to be full to be __ the giant useless oak
on the other side greening __I give it one long last look

ocean-fed moon-dependent

Pond Song 4.69

A plentitudinous sense of the equivocal can draw us toward the plurivocity of the divine unity. G&B 290

snow gone what things show up__plastic bottles dog poop
up from the path a glossy crow__in its beak a foam cup

ocean-fed moon-dependent__the pond on the way down
where the culvert sucks it under__flash of mallards green and brown

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old ice whets the wind

Pond Song 4.68

That we cannot pin it down should make us rethink the standing nature of the nunc
. G&B 294

old ice whets the wind__I do a double take
a seagull rides in__a belated snowflake

pluperfect light__nothing stands in this gale
baffled and blown about__light beyond the pale

echoing bank to bank

Pond Song 4.67

Joy is at one with itself as radiance beyond self. G&B 290

This is as far as I go__Du Fu surprised by grief
saying goodbye once more__ice swirls like a leaf

as the tide goes out__low over the sun-
lessness blackheaded geese__disappear into the horizon

of their guttural language__echoing bank to bank
I turn to go as I must__not knowing whom to thank

buds and icicles in the trees

Pond Song 4.66
The origin is not a determinate being but rather gives them to be as being at all. G&B 283

buds and icicles in the trees__stiff grass shivers in the wind
down a hole he cut for water__Thoreau saw summer and heaven

the water is all out to sea__the pond sunk in dirty snow
ice on the path drums footfall__faint meanders mark the flow

Tu Fu’s snapped off lines__bottom stones draped in ice
shine in dim sunlight__unmoved unmoving toward equinox

crows scrape by

Pond Song 4.65

Communion does not reduce to a mystical monism. G&B 273

Atlantic warming more snow__sparrows flit through the gloom
between hedge and icewall__Thoreau’s ink froze in his room

then thawed to pearly gray__color of the sky now the pond
sunk in eye-watering glare__crows scrape by the sound

criss-crossing everywhere__there’s nothing to photograph
calls interrupt the silence__ I mean caws more than enough

the hour sealed

Pond Song 4.64

“… [T]o act in oblivion of the gift given would be to rescind the creation as other.” G&B 257

the sky lead the hour sealed__snow glare everywhere

pond and trail no difference__no wind just this air

only the black cry of the crows__three notes a dropped beat

silence on the dim white path__a crow with snow on its beak

it’s snowing softly now

Pond Song 4.63

Nothing is what it is other than by being with what is other to itself. G&B

Noon St.Valentine’s Day__a pondful of dirty snow

sky flat horizon mauve__along the path chrome yellow

dog piss pure Bruegel__ between the One and chance a door

a natal door says Bonnefoy__opens to eye-watering glare

it’s snowing softly now__spots of brown and green

half-buried above the bank__a mallard pair is seen

a thirst no empire slakes

Pond Song 4.62

Only by being nothing, an expectant porosity, can one be filled by the divine other. G&B 273

the pond empty filling with snow__just look Thoreau said

I do and nothing happens__a woman with a red

umbrella passes by__where she was fills with flakes

a discharged hero sleeps rough__a thirst no empire slakes

ice green in undertow

Pond Song 4.61

There is a blind wordless peace – wordless peace that yet words the between. God and the Between 276

water glare snow glare __ boot sinks to mind’s bottom

bird’s eye view of things __ bird’s eye sockets brim

with my tears (vide Hawkins)__Tu Fu has been here

Thoreau’s intended stranger__moon’s pull spills clear

of words as we return__ocean stronger than snow

I watch at the culvert__ice green in undertow