by a garden pond, March 2021

torrid
clusters glisten
crawling croaking squeezing
ecstatic pomegranate piles
of spawn

for three old pennies
a small brass bowl
a trickle of desert
a chip off the sun
a satellite dish for Amon-Ra
a jaggery promise
a brazen lie
a night under stars
or a tiny tomb

Lent lifts you, pollen from the trees,
and bears you shoulder-high, a child,
rootless and irresponsible for once

you tease our noses, skip the breeze,
a double-stranded string of hope
ruthless as RNA but made

to land, to join, to grow, to be
invested in the settled clay.
No profiteering replicant,

adventuring and moving on,
you earn your place beneath the sun,
mature and hedged about,

resolve, as yielding branches
pitch and toss their leaves,
to bear the double bond.