Leave it as you found it

Leave it as you found it

 

 

film the old, cobwebbed pond

a few bugs cruise the surface

but life is dead underneath

no movement

no swirls

no world

 

stop the music

nature is swimming in its own death

I think I saw one live tree

leaning over the pond

a weeping willow

its tears dried up

 

 

erin-cilberto

9/14/24

Reviews

[Pete]

you speak a harsh truth. people want to leave their mark upon this world as if they will be here forever or perhaps to be remembered by. reminds me of what my muse thoreau wrote long ago, "“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thank you for your understanding, Pete.
j.

[Marie]

An excellently penned metaphoric write. A fine example of how deteriorated our environment has become is painted in the so poignant picture of the weeping willow having no tears left to cry. That speaks of the tragic state of our environment, J... But, one positive thing I can say about nature and the environment is that they will, at some point in the future, renew themselves. One can't keep nature down, it bounces right back up again. To be honest, I am more worried about the atmosphere and the damage all of the rockets, the trips into space, etc are doing. The high-altitude explosion of one of SpaceX's supersized Starship rockets last year temporarily ripped a hole in the upper atmosphere, a new study from Russian scientists shows. It is the first time this type of atmospheric disturbance has been created by a human-caused explosion, the researchers say. If anything, we should aim to leave our environment a better place than we found it for those who will follow our footsteps in time to come. Thank you so very much for sharing, J... I enjoyed reading very much. Lovely work, dear friend...

[jacob erin-cilberto]

And unfortunately we are not leaving it as we found it....not even close. Thanks for your extensive review, Marie.
Your contemplation of poems is always encouraging for those of us you read.
j.

[Marie]

Always most welcome, J... and gratitude with beautiful blessings your way for your too kind words, dear friend...

[Soren]

Many messages here Jacob? The demise of the enviornment, the cycle of live and seasons, a metaphor for ourselves and no one to weep for us. It seems dark on the surface as I read it and it says there is no life underneath but that one live tree that does not weep for death understands. Even in our destruction of the enviornment it understands in the vastness of time it will come back we man not.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your insightful words, Soren,
j.

[Chris Shaw]

This poem paints a black picture to me J, when even the weeping Willow sheds no tears. Decay and dying. What are we doing to our environment? It should never have got this far. Saddens the heart. Great write my friend.

Chris

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thank you for your words, Chris,
j.

[light and ashes]

This, very much reminds me of a very deep dark time in my depression;

They say, what comes up, must go down....


I always loved the weeping willow, growing up in Mississippi.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

did you grow up near where Faulkner hailed from...?

[John the Baptist]

Unless you're a really talented mortician, you can't make death pretty. It is what it is. Neither be crushed by it. It's just a process of nature, says Marcus Aurelius, and therefore not to be feared.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

very true, John, very true.
j.

[andrew mitchell]

Such a unique ecosystem that thrives on its own, pond life. The frogs, dragonflies etc. But with chemicals, pesticides, rubbish, plastic’s polluting the waterways, life can be destroyed. Another write to reminisce on.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thank you for your words, andrew,
j.

[Vol]

Erun,
I don't suppose there are many things as the disappointment that comes from a fractured anticipation of beauty denied... About fifty yards off my farm in Tennessee was a grand old Oak her feet were imbedded in a seep at the bottom of a mountain It would have ranked among the ones with names I see pictures of from around America... It took six adults with outstretched arms to ring it. Its bottom limbs were so long and heavy that halfway out at fifteen or twenty feet, gravity had dragged them down to make a step so once up, you could walk all the way to the trunk. I loved that tree... We sold the farm, and thirty years later I went to visit her. but she was gone without a trace... just the wet ground she used to drink from.
The leafless weeping willow mirrored inb the dead water is a particularly poignant one...
Vol

[jacob erin-cilberto]

That tree sounds fantastic...such a shame it was gone.
Thank you, Vol.
j.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

We should seek out another pond perhaps? The Dead Sea of detritus left behind won't follow us to fresh water but maybe we'll tire of that view as well. They say fate is fickle. I enjoyed the read. F.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thank you for your words, Fabian,
j.

[redzone]

WHOA! Dead pond, no tears Willow, Jacob have you been drinking that brew of despair again?? Hard not to take long, deep swallows from that brew these days, where everything is falling apart at the seams. And people wander, like zombies, maybe searching but mostly just trying to figure out how to survive the coming storms. I am probably reading way too much into your poem, but one of the great things about your poetry is it makes the reader feel. And to your credit, you enjoy the ways that people find meaning in your words. Thank you, Jacob, for your words and for a pen that puts them on paper.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thank you for your kind support of my words, Curt.
j.