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