the EPA Drained
the
epa
drained the mill pond
hoping to restore
the land
scape
to precolonial conditions
which of course
is all
woodlands and swamps
it has
some
thing
to
do
with goodecology
they say
but I think it has
moretodo
with
post
modern
deconstructionist
ideology
it certainly has
nothingtodo
with
BEAUTY
for the mill pond
was very beautiful
“a looking glass
where the great egret
and the glossy ibis fish”
as I said
in one of mypoems
or
A REFLECTING POOL
as Knight has painted it
in water
color
for
THE OLDEST STORE
and the
TALLEST
TREES
IN
RHODE
ISLAND
a puddlebrook
and a leaky little water fall
was all that was left
making mypoem
and Knight’s painting
look like
wishfulthinking
picturesque
makebelieve
the epa put up a
cruel aluminum
fish
ladder
and a sign prohibiting
the taking of herring
as if herring would swim up stream
to spawn in a missing pond
there’s more rhyme and reason
in thispoem
than in the epa
BEAUTY
WAS
RESCUED
by oneman with a
trusty old
pay loader
and a dextrous excavator
that could balance big boulders
on one finger
and build them into walls
all around
and shape a
gently
sloping
smoothstone
fish
ladder
at the water
fall
it was the first time I
thought of these machines
as
friends
of
the
land
scape
but with them
oneman
removed
a decade
of silt build up
and over growth
oneman
sculpted out a hollow
for the pond
like a kid scraping in
the sand box with his hand
I sat there in a kind of
religious stupor
watching the excavation
for
hours
at
a
time
deifying nature
you could say
and when oneman
dug a channel
to let the brook pour in
it was a Cecil B De Mille thrill
from the Book of Genesis
I’ll be waiting for the herring
to rediscover the pond
in April
and the mallards to retun
in May
with their ducklings
next fall
I
can
look
forward
to
the red maple
mirrored
in the blue water
at the dam
and in January I can watch
the ice skaters return
from the brink of extinction
I AM
glad to
enjoy the view
and
I AM
the only animal
that can
and don’t distract me
with the fact
that the millpond
is merely a head
water
for a mill
don’t distract me
with the practical
the utilitarian
she may grind corn
and make a bit
of electricity
intimate with man
and his waterwheels
in her most deep
private parts
but don’t be so prudish
about seduction
don’t be so hetero phobic
about the
meansofproduction
--Susan St. Martin
Susan St. Martin lives with her husband in Adamsville, RI. Her poetry has appeared in Ocean State Poems, Rocky Mountain Rider, First Things, The Osprey, The Westport Harvest Festival Anthology, Mars Hill Review, and Hereditas.
