Two Poems
Barbara Loots
Protected Species?
Like an armada, geese and goslings sail
across the lake in three flotillas. Their
serene invasion, destined not to fail,
will overcome the rocks and docks on shore
with offal of the most egregious kind
that army ever left behind a war.
The law does not permit us to defend
our ground with any less-than-peaceful ploys
though dynasties of geese decide to spend
each summer here perturbing all our joys
with ghastly traffic. Oh, the honking noise!
- - -
Kayak in the Lilypads
Glaciers laid down a wall of boulders around
what’s now a lake. Leaning cedars clutch
the ledges of the rocks with implacable claws
and the bones of their fallen branches
bulge up out of the water, conjuring
the shapes of dinosaurs and dragons.
Shimmer of the sun’s reflection
moves in the trees like a flight of spirits.
Red-winged blackbird wheedles in the marsh grasses.
Beaver leaves her wake along the shore until
she hears my shushhhh shusshhh, then
with a crash of her tail, dives deep.
- - -
Barbara’s notes: “We spend summers at a cottage in Ontario built by my husband’s father in 1946. It’s on an acre of rock in the middle of a small lake near Parry Sound. One of my joys there is paddling my kayak around the shoreline in the early morning, trying to sneak up on beavers, kingfishers, otters, loons, and whatever else might show up. There’s one kind of bird I’m not fond of. This year, three Canada Goose families (about forty birds!) left messes on rocks and docks everywhere not fenced off. They were loud, early and late. As the poem suggests, it felt like an invasion. Meanwhile, my writing idea for the summer was to investigate various forms of poetry, with an emphasis on sound effects. The kayak poem was meant to be splashy, without much attention to meter or rhyme. Thanks for reading!
“I recognize many friends among the contributors here. We hang out together in places like The Lyric, Light, Pulsebeat, LightenUpOnline, The Orchards, and elsewhere friendly to ‘formalists.’ My home is in Kansas City, Missouri. My cat’s name is Jane Austen. My bio and blog: barbaraloots.com.”
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