Pond Song 3.76

There is an other origin beyond the origin in the self with its own inward otherness. GB 176

sea-level pond no mountain top__wind-polished light-carved waves

this wind kept me up all night__day breaks what light saves

sparrows sit low in pale grass__milky ice drapes the shore

sunglare glazes the mudflats__where shallows darken more

wind-shadows spark across__out where buffleheads dive

in summer there’s only one now__it drops from sight its absence excessive

Pond Song 3.75

Our opening to the surplus in the otherness of given being can be complexly articulated, even if it exceeds all the determinations of intelligibility we muster. GB 45

light fog gurgle of the culvert__a company man no more

sodden burnt-out autumn__the pond not far from my door

the smokey edge of things__creak of a wheeling seagull

work’s dull roar from the river__barge lost to the tide’s pull

ducks dabble water splashes__music must have its Sabbath

just doing nothing is festive__this could be Rome or Bath

Pond Song 3.73

The idiocy of the singular call is not the opposite of the universal. GB 37

Light over and beyond this light__green of a bucket abandoned

by the last high tide sits in it__chrome yellow of beach rose stunned

by it at the pond’s far edge__in between a flow of surfaces

mirrors crushed foil empty spaces__peeps’ thin call over this

Pond Song 3.72

There is a bite of the unbidden about the urgency that breaks up our smug self-satisfaction. GB 33

harvest of autumn sunshine__smell of rot after rain

dawn rakes the blue meanders__black in the glare a chain

no archipelago of ducks__I would make my peace with death

compromised the cobalt surface__cormorants splash from beneath