It's unexpectedly mild this early Spring evening
and I take my glass of beer, cold in the hand,
and slide the patio door open and step out for the first time this year,
feeling like an intruder in my own garden, so strange in the twilight.
Then, melted by awe and gratitude
to see an unplanned wild violet
which has taken up residence between the cement slabs.
Between other slabs the miniature bamboo stubbornly returns,
(that was my Japanese year) and in the tiny pond,
soon to be turned into a living soup by amorous frogs
to the total puzzlement of the white cat, watching for an hour or so
and extending from time to time an ineffective paw,
or nosing the water unable, either, to gulp a tadpole -
in the tiny pond, something bright;
a dancing reflection in the water stirred by an evening breeze -
the moon;
the same moon that danced on the water for Li Po
as he drank from his wine cup
alone and at peace, so far, so long ago;
in a poet's solitude and contentment
and the thought of distant friends,
celebrated with wine
under the moon, on a spring evening,
in perfect happiness.
Michael Shepherd
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/0372-reflection-on-a-garden-pond/
