Pond in June
Among the lily-pads’ congested leaves,
above the pond, white water-lilies flower,
their yellow stamens in bright asterisks
like fried eggs somehow learning origami
and, coloured like a childish sun or star,
unblinkingly each water-lily stares
at midday heat and in midsummer light
at one star we can’t look at or it blinds us,
but underneath the waterline in sludge
like a crustacean or umbilicus
their rooted stems and stalks absorb the slime
filtrating juices where the tadpoles wriggle
below the water-lilies’ regal crowns.
Light wakes them and they close at shadow-time.
Duncan Forbes’ poems have been published by Faber, Secker and Enitharmon, who brought out a Selected Poems in 2009. For his most recent collection of poems, Human Time (2020), see www.duncanforbes.com. He read English and has taught for many years.