Poem: At the Pond Beyond the Pines

There’s a clearing out in the woods
Past a meandering creek now dried up
From summer creek that runs down
To the clearing in the pines
A little pond muddy and dark
Where we would sit under blue skies 
On late days of summer where heat
Could still be brutal but the evenings
Started to betray changing season
Giving away to premonitions of fall
That the evergreens would never tell
But we knew by cold mud on our feet
The times were a changing and waiting
Longer each night even as the sun
Abandoned us quicker we held on
Trying to hold back the inevitable bells
Of the school house calling an end
To the trifles of a misspent summer
That we couldn’t think of a better way
To be spent than in idle hours wasted
In the company of friends at the pond
Out beyond the pines where even now
Our initials outlast us carved 
With my grandpa's old swiss army knife
Into an old birch tree with a heart

Advertisement