Lush water-mirrored foliage is deep
inside the pond at noon. Leaves gleam and bloom
with beauty that’s enough to make him weep,
if all his other sorrows won’t suffice.
Entangled branchery is like a home
for fish that swim between mirages.
Twice,
he’s lost a fortune, had nowhere to go,
no refuge in a family or love.
He’d join these fish, fluid and quick below,
or maybe glide with swallows well above,
but he’s a prisoner of flesh. And loss.
And yet this undergrove has openings,
he notices, as shimmer fades toward dusk,
where paths appear, sky reddens, minnows flit.
Perhaps the only wealth this world can bring
is beauty, patterns traced by fin or wing,
beyond the reach of shadows, lies, or luck.