No doubt many a smiling valley with its stretching
cornfields occupies exactly such a “horrid chasm,”
from which the waters have receded — Thoreau
Shallow water out back, once
a finger of marsh — that’s what I thought —
twenty years ago dyked off
from open water to create this pond.
A culvert bears tidal flow & captures fish,
inside they’re safe to grow. A relative term,
safe — autumn brings cormorants flanked
by egrets dipping, herons stabbing, pelicans
that dive. Still, the water holds bass
grown monsters on fingerling fare,
mornings they rise up, crash down
like boulders hurled by gods. One day
a neighbor tells me a different tale, not
marsh but a field of tomatoes once grew
where water makes this pond & houses
surround it. A few staked tomatoes thrive
every hot summer. Post-Hugo,
citizens claiming to be wise (or town
planners) chose to gouge out the earth
to replenish Folly, the ravaged barrier island
a worthier, no, a more profitable setting
than farmed field, & so our land
is reconfigured time & again, not
for good by birds or fish or storm or tide.
Instead, for money & power these flaws abide.
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