Pond Life – a poem by Sheila Wellehan

Pond Life


The lily pads are rimmed with brown
this grim November day.
By month’s end, they’ll disappear

beneath dead oak leaves and tired
straw-colored pine needles.
The leaf-needle stew will sink,

and lily pads will be revealed
once more before winter,
ragged but floating.

Then ice. Snow. Ice. Snow.
Thaw—
Solid ice will turn translucent

then transparent, and we’ll see
the bottom of the pond again.
We’ll see lily pad roots.

A few weeks later, we’ll watch
lily pads pulling themselves up
along umbilical cords

growing from the pond’s bottom.
One morning, lily pads will pop
to the surface.

Frogs will croak so loudly,
we’ll forget that we feared
we wouldn’t make it through winter.

Sheila Wellehan’s poetry is featured in On the Seawall, Psaltery & Lyre, Rust & Moth, Thimble Literary Magazine, Whale Road Review, and many other publications. She’s served as an assistant poetry editor for The Night Heron Barks and as an associate editor for Ran Off With the Star Bassoon. Sheila lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.