Our companionship
with the early morning world,
birdsong in our ears.

Spring comes without you,
all of our ponds will crack, thaw,
I see you there, here.

Heat off the water,
your awareness of the life
moving around us.

In the dark tangle,
we’re in the same mystery,
the robin and me.

Both napping, one wakes
to keep watch in the cold pond —
she’s still half asleep.

On the pond today,
a great blue heron fishes,
legs blurred underneath.

The late summer fish
gather as we approach them
at the warm, deep pond.

Lily pads like suns,
orbit the one white bloom,
crickets sing all day.

White water lilies
bloom from underwater stems —
the pond’s surface breaks.

Summer milkweed lines
the shallow blue bullfrog pond,
deep with July sky.

Mallard like lightning,
out of the green pond in May —
we walk in the sun.

The sky in the pond
doubles the soft, changing day,
ecstatic with blue.

Three swans on the pond,
the November sun setting —
they love each other.

Rain on the koi’s heads,
rain on the creamy foxglove—
swimming on this June day.

I had six goslings
now I am mourned, struck, broken—
this year on the pond.

Standing on this spot,
thinking of that other shore,
my mind can make it.

Beauty and sadness,
not wanting to be careless
with either of them.

Green algae jewels
skimmed in through her lowered beak,
the only sound here.

The deer on her path,
the blue heron on his pond,
dusk comes while we walk.