A branch above the water
laughs. Laughing along
pond’s edge.
Another laughing branch — we
make our way along.
It is a game.
It is his game, I’m
always following,
moving then still on water
far from where I started.
The loons are in the middle of the pond,
floating just long enough to swallow.
Diving from depth to depth.
I am no trouble to them. They
are teaching me the lake.
Kingfisher game’s purpose
only to lose me, keep
zig-zagging, laughing.
A different lesson —
humility and acceptance.
Even now,
years and miles from birds and pond,
I would slip onto the water
again and again. Get lost
again and again.
Not find the kingfisher still,
something else.
—
Sydney Landon Plum is a retired Adjunct Professor from the English Department of the University of Connecticut, after more than 20 years teaching. Solitary Goose, her essays about life near a small pond, was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2007. At UConn, she co-chaired the committee establishing a major in Environmental Studies. She continues to wrestle with essential questions in writing about nature in her new environment in Northeastern Ohio.
