Watermark

The Reservoir

Poem

From the new mountain highway,
we have watched the narrow road below
lapped up by the lake, water rising
all the way to Hyde’s place:
now the tips of Lombardys
point above water like sable brushes.

I am ten, and wood slabs float
into haphazard rafts at Cresent Cove;
I am certain they rise from barn roofs
collapsing upward:

Surely the road beneath
still winds,
strange, stringy plants
waving upward in the current
where wild roses
pale toward green light.

Aspens quake for a season
under the ripples.
Persistent birds
bubble songs to the surface,
holding to branches
washed of leaves.

Trout from streams of Wind
River Range find the limits
of the lake exotic—
ground nests of larks
hatch spectacular birds
to climb the liquid sky.

Notes

Title poem from Dixie L. Partridge, Watermark (Upper Montclair, N.J.: Saturday Press, 1991).

 

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Print ISSN: 2837-0031
Online ISSN: 2837-004X