I Dug a Deep Hole to Make Them a Home

About the Poem

It has been about thirty years since I made my backyard koi pond. I built it before they were the trendy thing to do. So with no plans or guidance, I simply got out my shovel and started digging, then lined the hole with an old swimming pool liner I got from a friend. I remember being eager to add fish, but then deciding it was more logical to put the plants in first. Over the years the pond has matured and become a great natural habitat for countless creatures I never expected.

These days, when I think of all the things I do for enjoyment, hanging out by the pond is one of my favorites. I love to pull up a chair and watch the fish swim. It is total relaxation; even though, most living things out there see me as an intruder.

The poem I have written, Back By The Pond is an observational poem about the things that I see by the pond.

In A Swirl I Forget Where I Am (a photograph the fish in my backyard pond)

Back By The Pond

Day lilies spear
a tangle of vinca,
un-muted they blow
with thelonious
jazz.

A dragonfly darts
here-and-there,
ratchets a pathway
of childish rhymes.

Koi dance in kimonos
silent as overweight monks
with lily umbrellas.

Each white cloud
is fragrant, flashes
on-and-off highlights
on fertile green water.

Two bulging green eyes
look through the duck weed
then disappear.

I stand all alone
in a place to forget,
a refuge that is leery
of me.

Author's Note

In Back By The Pond I am stretching the meanings of words and trusting the reader will make the connections. In stanza two for example, the dragonfly ratchets a pathway. In using ratchets this way I am asking the reader to imagine the sound a dragonfly makes as it flies. Another example is seen in stanza five, where I refer to the fragrance of clouds. The reader has to ask, do clouds have a fragrance? Then they have to think if they do what does it smell like. There are other places in the poem where I use words in unusual ways, but hey, the reader is smart and will figure them out.

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Writing and art are my own.