By Jennie Meyer

It takes three days,
three walks with Leo padding along
to the Bray Street pond—
a low-lying field long drowned.

On the first day I walk to where the ice still blankets
the shadow side of inky water to find
the red-winged black birds have arrived,
fluting and wringing their song from the tall reed
through eager, rasping throats,
puffing their blood-red epaulets.

On the second day, the equinox,
a Canada goose honks low and lonely,
floating dead-center in the water,
circled by dam, pine, white gabled house,
and sink-holed asphalt,

rousing from afar a hidden pair who spiral
round and round above him,
trumpeting a two-toned hallelujah,
before fading away.

On the third day, ice fully subdued by rain,
she finally emerges— just a small brown blip
breaking the surface, with two long thin wakes
like enormous whiskers, and one waving rudder.
So slick Leo never even notices,
but for a fluid, trackless scent.
She slides along, gently parting the dark waters,
disappears, surfaces, then dives down.

I can’t remember how long
a beaver can breathe underwater—
long enough for my raw, wet fingers
to remind me of the pellet stove back home,
long enough, no doubt, to submarine along
submerged stumps from the old field
and enter the tunnel into her mud and stick lodge,
perhaps to share a meal of tender inner-bark
with her young from her silt-lined palms,
showing, at least in this pond, all is well.

Jennie Meyer, M.Div., is a poet, yogi, and labyrinth walker. Her poetry is forthcoming or published in Anchor Magazine, Albatross, Artis Natura, Ascent Aspirations Magazine, Folded Word, The Avocet Weekly, Common Ground Review, and Patchwork Journal. Jennie lives in Gloucester, MA with her husband, three children, and resident wildlife.