Let's say I throw the pebble and the pebble is you gray and irregular slightly more jagged at one end than the other the ripples then in the pond are also you or you-shaped somewhat anyway let's say you-influenced at least at first that first one that pushes out the rest shoulders out the rest of the ripples surprising the face of the pond confusing the sky's calm reflection startling the fish beneath the surface just there topsy-turvying perhaps the water strider riding a sudden wave which is a sort of you or the inadvertent effect of being you but you only exist anyway as a color in my eye a coolness in my palm in my nose the tang of you and air defines you as you fly water yields to you and speaks of you on its surface and you become because of current over you and the whisper of the lips of fish whisking bits of weed that have lingered on the curves and crevices of the thrown-into-the-pond you as any of us can't know our trajectory from one minute to the next from an object at rest to an object flying to a sinker to a sunk stone in a pond's cup remembered for a moment by some moving water now still
Marilyn McCabe’s poetry has won awards and contests through A Room of Her Own Foundation, The Word Works, Grayson Books, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Adirondack Center for Writing. Her books of poems include Perpetual Motion and Glass Factory, and chapbooks Rugged Means of Grace and, most recently, Being Many Seeds. Poems and videopoetry have been published in print and online, and videopoems have appeared in festivals and galleries. She blogs about writing and reading at Owrite: marilynonaroll.wordpress.com.
Featured Artwork:
Rooftop Dancing
Sherry Shahan lives in a laid-back beach town in California where she grows carrot tops in ice cube trays for pesto. Her photography has appeared in national and international magazines, newspapers, and literary journals. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.