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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
pond songs 