Vernal Pond

In this earthen bowl

where snows 

have melted, 

sacks 

of frog eggs 

drift. 

You wrote

yesterday 

to report 

on the test:

brain scan 

in a lonely 

white tube,

someone shining 

a light 

in your eyes.

Spring peepers 

drown the traffic 

from the road below. 

The wind 

sways moosewood 

branches, 

      a clacking sound 

like the machine

that looked inside 

your skull. 

You know all of this, 

having studied 

wetlands. 

The egg-sacks float 

like ships caught in doldrums. 

The report says 

you have Alzheimer’s. 

By the end 

of June 

these waters will be gone. 

Sitting near the pond

I regret 

that so much of the world 

must disappear.