The Pond in Late Summer
by Theodora Goss

Today I went to the pond
and saw some catfish moving under the water.
The broadleaf arrowhead was blooming, its white flowers,
arranged along a raceme and whorled by threes,
three-petaled, looked up at the sky with a yellow eye
at each center, like a miniature sun emerging
from clouds. There was a turtle poking its head
up out of the duckweed. The last of the lilypads floated
on the surface. The willows still hung
their long tresses down into their own green reflections.
Across the pond, a cardinal flashed red. Above, the clouds
(the real ones) were gray with the promise of rain.
And I thought, this is the heaven
we were promised. If we can’t find it here,
we will not find it elsewhere.

(The image is Water-Lily Pond and Weeping Willow by Claude Monet.)