Pond Song 3.63

“We distract ourselves with ‘meaning.’” G&B 29

nature’s copia nature’s baroque__still hot air of August

smudge of the morning moon__just enough clarity to lust

after more but nothing doing__the pond offers a few numbers

4 cormorants 2 egrets 1 heron__the count changes of course

driftwood gray satin stalker__did you croak just now

a glint a still wet beak__a cormorant’s under his shadow

this is that no longer holds__a still there dragonfly flows

over the tall dry grasses__three bees roll in one rose

Pond Song 3.62

Our self-surpassing calls on us to be related to the disproportionate in what is proportioned to us. G&B 125

our sins revealed in water__with incoming fresh salt

tide unbiodegradable waste__this dragon is our fault

milky sheen over shallows__deep in the distance crows

over Harleys (this is New Hampshire)__heavy scent of beach rose

over petrol and human smells__crossing the pond broken

circles over circles shine__a cormorant’s quick token

Pond Song 3.61

There are fertile equivocities that just in their resistance to complete determination or self-determination impel us to the edge of ultimate mystery. G&B 124

toothbrushes gather mid-ocean__above the pond today

nothing but blue skies__white gulls gyre away

at the top of their lungs__from the sound of it

bees crowd the beach rose__beyond where I sit

dozing in the sun a hum__human traffic dim deep

down at the water’s edge__fat ducks rounded in sleep

POND SONG 3.60

Opening the untouchable enclosure of shut-in selving is like a death, though sometimes the death is unnoticed, like a gentle wooing, and imperceptibly one comes alive again. G&B 223

I pass the public bench__neat stack of clothes under it

the bench itself empty__the mud’s hot glare and rapid

rippling of the neap tide__a flapping egret spins

in stenciling sun (Matisse)__and that only begins

to make sense as wen__Tu Fu mind reflects

the meandering of the flow__there are no subtexts

Pond Song 3.59

We are going nowhere. We are simply mindfully dwelling on being as given. God and the Between 133.

light fog and the tide ebbing__closed in the dusk blue

aster droop over the path__St. John’s bells renew

the week from a distance__spotting the pond’s gray

a cormorant goes under__the gray is more than gray