Enchanted place on the island, Long Island Poem for New Year's Eve Sunday

We all have our very own places on the island that cast their spell if we stop long enough to reflect. Patti Tana presents hers: "The pond behind my home is a source of delight and inspiration in all seasons."

The Pond on Kaintuck Lane
Patti Tana

Before the Epsteins built this house
and the small stone dam, a vernal pond
swelled and shrank in a summer
meadow of grazing cows.
Glazed with winter
the pond drew the children
down from the hills ––
voices ringing, ice skates zinging.

Cows are gone, but behind the house
the pond still lives, larger and deep,
freezing and thawing with the seasons.
Ducks and geese and swans feast
on floating gardens.
In winter they stamp and peck
and plow through ice forming
solid skin on the fluid pond.

On the other side
a train flickers through the trees
while a dragon, lit mouth to tail,
courses through the water.
The moon casts a shimmering glow.
And when no moonlight hides their light
the pond draws the stars down the sky
into the indigo night.

'The Pond on Kaintuck Lane' by Patti Tana.
Published with author's permission.

Patti Tana, Professor Emerita of English at Nassau Community College, is associate editor of Long Island Quarterly and the Walt Whitman Birthplace Long Island Poet of the Year 2009. Her eighth collection of poems is Any Given Day (Whittier Publications, Inc., 2011). Listen to her read her poems at www.pattitana.com

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