Garnet Poems: An Anthology of Connecticut Poetry Since 1776

Watersong

115 f. D. reeve Watersong When I spend a long time fishing alone, the brook begins to sing as if a cemetery of souls in the stones were rising in a ring around me, like a hatch of mayflies, exulting, then fleeing to the woods. Why insects are so small is not surprising: fact is they have no bones. What do they make of the moon’s rising in the firs like an orange stone? Don’t my boots and my two small eyes trespass on their livelihood? In our last home we’re all alone. Some fear forever; some sing. What’s piously carved in the granite stones is a joke. Amoral surroundings, suns swarm and sink in the western skies without being evil or doing good. ...