By Devon Balwit
The Koi in today’s pond
know nothing
of yesterday’s earthquakes.
They swim in and out of sky,
light reflecting through
Japanese maples, all opalescent
scales, mouths opening
to the same roundness
whether or not hundreds
of souls take another breath.
The Koi weave slow patterns
beneath the footbridge, visible,
invisible, like dreams that break
the surface then disappear.
If they feel the shifting
of tectonic plates, the yielding of re-bar,
their languid fins say nothing.
Suffering troubles us alone
as now they congregate, now
they swim apart,
sacerdotal and mysterious.
Devon Balwit is the author of 6 chapbooks and three collections. Her individual poems can be found in St Katherine Review as well as in The Cincinnati Review, Psaltery & Lyre; Rattle; Peacock Journal; Free State Review; and more.