July 2019
NOTE: The POND saga continues. Each day brings new changes, new dramas, but sometimes the dramas are so subtle that I am forced into a kind of attentiveness I didn't think I could manage. It's lovely. And quite challenging. Besides studying what is going on "in" the pond, I'm also studying what's happening outside the pond. What a joy. I have learned the names of multiple wild flowers and plants that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. It gets a little tougher to write each day. I just have to keep telling myself that there are WAY WAY WAY MORE than enough Ps, Os, Ns, and Ds to go around and complete this project. The stop date is November 9, 2019.
5.1.19
12.27 p.m.
52 degrees
Praiseworthy day; the rose-breasted grosbeaks have returned.
Onyx, white, and oh, that red. I heard him first, then I saw him!
Nappy wet, the border collies are enjoying the cold May water.
Doozy of a day! Grosbeaks in the trees, dogs in the pond, grin on my face.
***
5.2.19
8.58 a.m.
52 degrees
Pulque colored sky and a hint of humidity, harbinger of the
overwhelming heat that is still to come. The meadow violets are
nesting in the dew-soaked grass, and here and there along the path, the
daises have bloomed like little yellow suns that brighten the way
***
5.3.19
1.14 p.m.
61 degrees
The hummingbirds returned today.
Pluck and aerials this creature weighing 1/10 of an ounce, and
ovations are due each the time hummers return, as they did today.
Nervous polliwogs, disperse with every step I take, and
dive, bellies flashing white, vanishing into to the mud instantly.
***
5.5.19
10.57 a.m.
53 degrees
Purest concerto of toads and peepers around the pond, the woods on the
outskirts, everywhere, until I approach and they preserve their silence in the
nooks in which they hide in the open, invisible right in front of us, like
dollops of gray clay given, besides their malleability, the gift of song.
***
5.8.19
11.03 p.m.
64 degrees
Painted shades of mocha, the northern water snake, in graceful wide
ovals, pushes himself from side to side across the brown water,
nears the safety of the far shore, away from me,
darns the water in his wake into a perfect braid of pond.
***
5.10.19
9.58 p.m.
54 degrees
Private pond, domain of a single male mallard,
observes me for a moment, then goes about his business,
noising and head bobbing, water like glass shimmering from his body,
duck, overseer, owner, keeper of the pond this morning.
© 2019 John L. Stanizzi
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF