I'll just read one more from the sequence, and then
two more poems.
Since I'm running out of water, that
must be a sign I'm running out of time.
Sorry, I think I can make it.
A lot of water in this poem, I think that'll see me through.
The Lotus Flowers.
The surface of the pond was mostly green,
bright green algae reaching out from the banks,
then the mass of water lilies, their broad round
leaves rim to rim, each white flower spreading
from the center of a green saucer.
We teased and argued, choosing the largest,
the sweetest bloom, but when the rowboat lumbered through
and rearranged them, we found the plants were anchored,
the separate muscular stems descending in the dense water.
Only the most determined put her hand
into that frog slimed pond to wrestle with a flower.
Back and forth we pumped across the water in twos and threes,
full of brave adventure.
On the marshy shore, the others hollered for their turns
or at the hem of where we pitched
the tents, gathered firewood.
This was wilderness, although the pond was less than half
an acre and we could still see the grand magnolias
in the village cemetery, their waxy white conical blossoms
gleaming in the foliage.
A dozen girls, the oldest only 12,
two sisters with their long braids,
my shy neighbor, someone squealing without interruption.
All we didn't know about the world buoyed us
as the frightful water sustained and moved,
the flowers tethered at a depth we couldn't see.
In the late afternoon, before they'd
folded into candles on the dark water,
I went to fill the bucket at the spring.
Deep in the pond's exposed tree roots
formed a natural arch a cave of black loam.
I raked off the skin of leaves and needles,
leaving a pool so clear and shallow
I could count the pebbles on the studded floor.
The sudden cold splashing up from the bucket to my hands
made me want to plunge my hand in
and I held it under feeling the shock that wakes and deadens,
watching first my fingers, then the ledge beyond me,
the snakes submerged and motionless,
the head propped on its coils the way
a girl crosses her arms before her on the sill
and rests her chin there.
Lugging the bucket back to the noisy clearing,
I found nothing changed, the boat still
rocked across the pond, the fire struggled and cracked
as we fed it branches and debris into the night,
leaning back on our pallets, spokes in a wheel,
learning the names of the many constellations,
learning how each fixed cluster took its name not
from the strongest light but from the pattern made by stars
of lesser magnitude, so like the smaller stars we rowed among.