Algae
The pond takes attention like the grass and glade,
the brush areas and the gulley that seems wild
but must be tended: rip-rap to keep it small,
from eating more of our land. The algae blooms
around the pond’s edge. At the rim I glean
and skim. A void grows where I’ve culled
that shrinks as ranks close in. I work an hour
at the green and brown medallions that float
and mull. Wind herds the scum to one side,
a quarter-moon across. It must look mottled
to the blue heron whose shadow grazes me,
who’d land and gaze for perch if I weren’t here.
Robert Lunday is the author of the memoir Disequilibria: Meditations on Missingness (University of New Mexico Press, 2023). Read more.