January 2020
John L. Stanizzi
Jnc4251@aol.com
Jnc4251@aol.com
Author's Note:
A brief word about the pieces I've submitted. They are from a one-year-long project called POND — The poems are acrostics.
Everyday, at different times during the day, I visit our pond with notebook and camera in hand. I jot down some notes, take a
picture or two, if a good photo op. presents itself. Then I head home and write a four line acrostic using the letters P, O, N, and D.
The other caveat, which makes the project so interesting to me, is that I cannot use any of my first words more than once. I need a
different P, O, N, or D word every day; I began the book on November 9, 2018 and completed it on November 9, 2019.
P O N D Poems
5.4.19
6.13 a.m.
54 degrees
Plopped in the middle of the path to the pond this fog-socked morning, a bull frog who
ogles nothing. Eyes half-mast he is stone-still even when I lift him, this
nodded frog far enough from home to find danger. Though he seems fine
despite this lethargy. I place him in shallow water and he just sits motionless, blinking at me.
5.9.19
4.44 p.m.
62 degrees
Pearly sky this late in the day, and the pond’s rites of
obsequies are performed on the battered coppery surface where
nymphal boatmen and swarms of midges all appear frantic or perhaps
delighted that with the coming of nightfall they may dance unassailable.
5.12.19
6.58 a.m.
45 degrees
after Elizabeth Bishop
Precipitate this morning’s rain, it’s concentric shocks speed
outwards and away before I can form a thought, and the yellow warbler
natters of things that are sweeter than sweet, as the circles on the pond
drown and resurface and the air is filled with thoughts of wood smoke.
©2020 John L. Stanizzi
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