Poem of the day: Robert Harms Paints the Surface of Little Fresh Pond

Mark Doty

Robert Harms Paints the Surface
of Little Fresh Pond

Surface the action of the day,

a means of tracing the dynamic,
so that a jitter of blue's
sparked by little coals,

sun a glimmer
of the day's intent. He knows
to trace an alphabet written on water

is to surface the action of the day,

a way of proceeding,
entering into the never-
to-be repeated,

a way of reading
a nearly infinite variety of gestures
legible only to one versed

in surface, the action of the day.

When my eye nearly failed
—the frail foil-back torn,
wild profusion of smoke-curls,

what I saw was just this:
what he sees on and in water,
by his hand

the action of surface notated,

the rhythm of things
discerned and ridden.