Pond Prey

APR 23, 2025

Young and tied to a river, that night I swam
and saw God for the first time and it echoed back
telling me something like ‘don’t ever lick the cherry
because it’s full of wretched slime’

I knew I didn’t hear it right; then I thought maybe
I didn’t know God, at least not then.

At this time, where the cuckoo sings
like the grandfather clock in that old house
the one we drove off to as kids, the yellow one
with the plastic pool out back

the one where we fished in the pond
and saw an eagle fly over on to its nest,

I can think to myself of the past
and the cherry trees, you own them now
and the land I used to trespass for the thrill
but now I know God’s faces

and there are many; just as there are leaves on a tree
and I know the taste of that slime, it’s sour

like all your forgiveness, and it has no end
just as this sacred land.

We walk here now, and it feels strange
like it would be walking up to that old yellow house
the one with the eagle and the pond and the pool
where the grandfather clock sings its cuckoo songs

and I think to myself, how far I’ve grown
but I’ve cared for my garden.

That old farmer let those trees grow rotten
and that’s where that dark slime comes from, I think
it doesn’t matter much now, because you own that land
and I, well

I’ve drifted off into an early spring and I wait
for midsommer, like the eagle waits to catch it’s prey in the pond.