Resonance
I’ve walked around the pond twice
and think I know how a circle starts, ends.
Leaves drift on the water’s surface, crunch
underfoot like beetle skin. Red and yellow
reflecting. Water rushes in ripples like the surge
of traffic when a light changes:
the air a single body. Core of an apple
tossed to tree line and I scatter
seeds for whoever’s looking. Light cracks
the rust-colored water. Love might
be seeking what we lack, but today
a leaf lands beside me
and I see no choice but to place it
on the water, where it will disintegrate,
evaporate, come back down
as rain. The pond holds
onto itself. Round and full
lungs. It changes color, is last summer’s
fading sun, these orange leaves. It is the tree.
It is both the leaf quivering
on the surface and my hand
trying to hold the water still—
Sarah Terrazano is a writer from Boston, currently living and working in Madrid. Her work has been published in The Merrimack Review and Revolving Door Journal. She has twice received an Academy of American Poets College Prize and was the co-winner of the 2019 Glascock Poetry Contest.
Header photo by PozitiveDezign, courtesy Pixabay. Photo of Sarah Terrazano by Sabrina Chow.
