Night at the Duck Pond--By Tom Davis--United States

Night at the Duck Pond

Towering cypress
clothed in ragged gray-brown bark
and bearded with strands
of Spanish moss
ring the pond’s far end.
Cypress knees rise
from the water like stalagmites.
Giant cattails and platter-sized lily pads,
interlaced with long reed canarygrass,
host a choir of bullfrogs and katydids.
A small field road hugs its western side.
In the distance, a gator slaps its tail.
The dank smell of swamp, river, and
midnight dew churn in the air.
A whippoorwill cries its sad three-note song
as the moon shines a face of stunning gold.

In his younger years, Tom Davis served as a Special Force Combat Diver. It seems to him that he spent more time on, in, and under the water than as a landlubber. This and other adventures he has written about in his memoir, The Most Fun I Ever Had With My Clothes On: A March From Private to Colonel. http://www.oldmp.com/davismemoirs