High-Water Mark

March 23 2011

A scum of pollen

rings the lake

like dishwater.

In the shallows

yellow, stagnant.

In the wash of waves

lapping gently back and forth.

And high and dry, on the cobbled shore

a jaundiced stain.

The promise, the waste.

Like overwhelming power

as a doctrine of war

nature resorts to excess,

flooding the world with life

in a promiscuous spring,

brief

pent-up

intense.

Shock and awe, carpet bomb, blitzkrieg.

But in nature, there is no waste;

only food, and fed

and descent,

a perfect balance

of life, and death.

On the sheer cliffs

that hem in the narrows

a bright yellow line is inscribed.

The wanton abundance of spring,

in permanent marker

on weathered rock

in a mean and hungry winter.

We persist in our anthropocentric view of nature. Not just what is of use and what isn’t (or what appears to be), but also our preference for the aesthetic. The scum of pollen is hardly that. But it is no less beautiful if seen as part of an ecological system …in the continuity of time …as a central element in the interdependence of food, survival, and reproduction. Because beauty is not just aesthetics. It also arises from deep knowledge, from an appreciation of complexity, from the marvel of sustainability. So that scum of spent pollen is not unsightly in the least. It’s exactly as it should be.