by Focus
© 2000 Focus, all rights reserved
Country road casts mirage to blazing sun,
Dips through warm irrigation water,
Rises to air writhing with heat,
And wanders off to parched oblivion.
But I stay by the ditch,
Heading upstream past tulees, past bamboo,
To the gravelly bank at the side of a pool,
And squat in the shade of a cottonwood tree.
In silence of summer afternoon
Few birds sing. But a cricket
Hidden among weeds rasps his legs together,
And the irrigation pump wheezes rhythmatically.
The pool seems quiet, deep, and still,
Motionless this breezeless August day.
But beneath that smooth surface
Not all is as it seems.
Crawdads, fish, larvae, tadpoles, and frogs
Predators and prey, live their secret lives
Aswirl in watery drama, meeting their destiny
With turmoil unseen and hidden.
Calm and cool, solitary, in the pool I see
My own reflection. It is my twin, the pool;
For beneath my surface, fear and passions also
Lurk, unseen and deeply hidden.