(Long exposure, fireflies; by Tsuneaki Hiramatsu)
IN THE MOMENT
Some
days the pond
wears a glaze of yellow pollen.
Some days it is clean-swept.
The trout leap up, feasting on insects.
A modest size, it sits
like a soup tureen in a surround of white
pine where Rosie, 14 lbs., some sort
of rescued terrier, part bat
(the ears), part anteater (the nose),
shyly paddles in the shallows
for salamanders, frogs
and little painted turtles. She logged
ten years down south in a kennel, secured
in a crate at night. Her heart murmur
will carry her off, no one can say when.
Meanwhile she is rapt in
the moment, our hearts leap up observing.
Dogs live in the moment, pursuing
that brilliant dragonfly called pleasure.
Only we, sunstruck in this azure
day, must drag along the backpacks
of our past, must peer into the bottom muck
of what's to come, scanning the plot
for words that say another year, or not.
wears a glaze of yellow pollen.
Some days it is clean-swept.
The trout leap up, feasting on insects.
A modest size, it sits
like a soup tureen in a surround of white
pine where Rosie, 14 lbs., some sort
of rescued terrier, part bat
(the ears), part anteater (the nose),
shyly paddles in the shallows
for salamanders, frogs
and little painted turtles. She logged
ten years down south in a kennel, secured
in a crate at night. Her heart murmur
will carry her off, no one can say when.
Meanwhile she is rapt in
the moment, our hearts leap up observing.
Dogs live in the moment, pursuing
that brilliant dragonfly called pleasure.
Only we, sunstruck in this azure
day, must drag along the backpacks
of our past, must peer into the bottom muck
of what's to come, scanning the plot
for words that say another year, or not.
By Maxine Kumin, from Where I Live
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