AT THE POND

Light the pond reflects

is both diffused and absorbed:

today the surface

enshrouded in close-knit clouds

no bass no trout nor I breach.

*

Five duck eggs nested

in arrow grass. At my footfall,

the mother flies up.

Friends scatter. With you gone,

who will know me anymore?

*

Absence a presence

at first: as if, like water

let loose, the spirit

unembodied flows outwards

into those of us closest.

*

As in an Escher,

the negative space, the space

absented by you,

stared at intently, pops out,

dominating the picture

until we adjust

and the black cutout recedes,

leaving a new take

on you, a structural plane

sharply incorporeal.