January 2019
NOTE: These pieces are from a brand new project. I'm writing a book called POND. Every day for one year, I will venture down to our pond, scribble a few notes, along with the date and time and, when warranted, the weather. The book will be completed on November 9, 2019. I always bring my camera and, when a picture will enhance a poem, I snap a few shots to include in the manuscript.
The REAL motivation -- besides getting myself to the pond every single day is this. The poems are acrostic...all of them are four lines. The first words of each line will begin with P. O. N. D. And the REAL kicker is that I am not allowing myself to repeat any of the starting words. Truth is, I am not at all sure I can do this, but so far so good! Only 300+ days to go!!
**
11.10.2018
10.06 a.m.
34 degrees
Pitchy dark where winter has just this moment arrived
out of the north hills; it crawls up under my shirt,
naturally and unfazed, as if it were trying to warm itself,
daguerrean-downstream rush of the brook gossips its cold voice.
**
11.13.2018
2.46 p.m.
39 degrees
Piety arrives with a female evening grosbeak.
Offed by chill wind, the leaves cover the wet forest ground.
Nearby, the sound of running water
dazzles like a miniature Topajos, miniature Amazon.
**
11.21.18
9.10 a.m.
33 degrees
Paeans, these multiflora rose-hips reaching for us to notice them.
Overstepped by the sun, the cloudiness is gone, hoarfrost wet.
Needing this clarity -- sunken leaves, small sandy clearings on the pond’s bed —
doubt sinks too, while everything in the pond sleeps, even through the morning sun.
**
11.25.18
10.51 a.m.
45 degrees
After all-night rain all the snow is gone, pond starting to thaw, stream-beds bursting
Palaver between culvert run-off and Fowler’s pond;
one day in summer, when the stream is dry,
nary a drop of water in the overgrown streambeds,
daydreams will invoke thin ice – a map on black paper, drawn with silver pen.
The REAL motivation -- besides getting myself to the pond every single day is this. The poems are acrostic...all of them are four lines. The first words of each line will begin with P. O. N. D. And the REAL kicker is that I am not allowing myself to repeat any of the starting words. Truth is, I am not at all sure I can do this, but so far so good! Only 300+ days to go!!
**
11.10.2018
10.06 a.m.
34 degrees
Pitchy dark where winter has just this moment arrived
out of the north hills; it crawls up under my shirt,
naturally and unfazed, as if it were trying to warm itself,
daguerrean-downstream rush of the brook gossips its cold voice.
**
11.13.2018
2.46 p.m.
39 degrees
Piety arrives with a female evening grosbeak.
Offed by chill wind, the leaves cover the wet forest ground.
Nearby, the sound of running water
dazzles like a miniature Topajos, miniature Amazon.
**
11.21.18
9.10 a.m.
33 degrees
Paeans, these multiflora rose-hips reaching for us to notice them.
Overstepped by the sun, the cloudiness is gone, hoarfrost wet.
Needing this clarity -- sunken leaves, small sandy clearings on the pond’s bed —
doubt sinks too, while everything in the pond sleeps, even through the morning sun.
**
11.25.18
10.51 a.m.
45 degrees
After all-night rain all the snow is gone, pond starting to thaw, stream-beds bursting
Palaver between culvert run-off and Fowler’s pond;
one day in summer, when the stream is dry,
nary a drop of water in the overgrown streambeds,
daydreams will invoke thin ice – a map on black paper, drawn with silver pen.
11.28.2018
10.12 a.m.
34 degrees
** Lightest snowflurries. No ice on the pond.
Pushing the entire pond toward me, the wind made the water
onefold battered steel, liquid pewter this black pond,
narrowing toward the string-algae and Gir-Lilla, the cat,
dauntless at the spillover, waiting like a grizzly for salmon in the snowy air
©2018 John L. Stanizzi
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