UPPER POND

Meet me under the oak tree

--the lone one by the Upper Pond. Meet

me on the last warm day of October,

when the water level’s so low it’s

brackish and reaches only to the cows’

knees. Meet me when the bugs, so

seasonally befuddled, collide in

swarms, awaiting direction.

Meet me under the oak tree—

we’ll bed down on acorn hulls

and oak galls and dried cowpies.

We’ll listen to hawksong, see

strands of geese pepper the clear.

They know where to go. We do

too.