The road commissioner’s men hold back

a multitude of springs in borrow ponds along

the roadside. Each manbuilt

water-womb’s a bucket

of startled breeders

disclosing its turn at

gain or decay when I come by

the brim. Cowslips border some

ponds and flatter the bee.

Willows withe their hair

in their hair on others, while

some ponds cradle the muck of

stickleback, pike, and nettle-

bush where lovers

crawl under to bake

on the steamy loam.

Yet I have searched the ponds

near home, watched waterbugs

cleave to water leaving

no sign of their passing,

of plain-brute industry,

no scar. I’ve seen

backswimmers kicking up

pondbloom that blooms

the same again for

kingfishers diving for fish.

And I’ve strayed fresh gravel

across Lee County roads and then,

with cheatgrass shunting its wicks

in my socks and pants,

I have looked back at nothing changed

and walked on home.

Someday I might find a borrow pond

gone, evolved in its own destruction

to fen or farmland, though

everywhere I see water and wings stirring

time’s midden, man’s landfill.