Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Teeming Waters


Today's illustration is one of my photos ... a fuzzy little snapshot taken to preserve the moment ... I don't recall exactly where or when I snapped it ... but the tranquility of the scene appealed to me.

Teeming waters? Hardly.


The juxtaposition of the pair of ducks ... and the reflection of the large tree caught my eye.


I'm always intrigued by the ducks we encounter on our walks ... the ways they interact with each other ... and with us ... and the way the young tag along behind Mother, as though being tugged by an invisible string.


And trees? I'm not really a tree hugger, but I do like trees. They were so much of where I grew up ... so much of my early life ... and now, in my current stage, I am drawn more and more to their shade during my summer walks.


So it seemed a very natural combination for a photo ... and now, maybe a match with today's poem.
In it, I guess I'm saying that while I consider myself a painter of pictures with words ... the words I find here and there ... I don't really paint the BIG PICTURE.


Where word-pictures are concerned, I'm not a muralist. I stick to the small subjects I know ... and mostly just as an observer, at that, things I take note of as I stroll by.
I'm not a philosopher, sometimes not even a thoughtful observer.


But I do relish the little word-pictures that come to me in quiet moments. This one contains some of those.



The poem:



TEEMING WATERS


No ocean liners ply the waters
of my mind, no freighters,
and no reefers sitting low
with their burden of hefty ideas,
but smaller craft keep them
teeming, shadows following
in the shallows, crawling
the paths where pebbles lie
travel-rounded and waiting,
always waiting, for that poem.
© 1996
(originally published in ByLine)

Today's word: teeming

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I still enojoy your poems every day, even if I don't send comments--or, I guess, they are called blogs, these days. Your poems always stir me in one way or another. I've never read a poem that you've written, that I don't feel. It may not even be the emotion that you thought it would bring out, nor what others think and and see in their mind's eye. Each of your poems moves me in some way, and I feel better because I read it. Thank you for them, Bob.
Happy New Year to you and your family and friends, and to all that read this.