A CONVERSATION WITH A POND

"I'VE KNOWN A THOUSAND PONDS...
       MORE OR LESS..."
*************************************

Yes, I speak "pond."
    More precisely, I speak "Pondese."
I learned it from duck-hunting and
    catfishing in ponds
from Childress to Abilene to Artesia
    to Bernardo....

It is not an oft-heard-of language...
    Nonetheless, it's there to be learned
in its thousand dialects, 
    because you see---
Every pond speaks a different one.

"Pondese" does not depend upon
    high and low inflections and
other quirky devices, to be 
    understood--
It is a WAVELENGTH language.
    To understand it, you have to 
be on...the same wavelength.

And you have to believe that nature
    does after all, 
speak to us.

One day, I stopped by to see Joe
    and his garden--- and
his famous pond. He was away
    lecturing somewhere...
So I quietly slipped over in his
   pasture, dragged an old hidden
lawn chair, out of the bushes.

Meditating there, by Joe's pond,
    I got a bit drowsy and slipped
into a kind of reverie. (It was nice.
    Ponds can be...friendly places.)

"Mil," the pond seemed to say, 
    "It's good to have someone 
drop by who speaks Pondese!"
    "For you see, I sometimes
think I need a pond shrink---
    I worry a lot---I am becoming
a hypochondriac pond...
    Sometimes, at night, when I
ought to be placid and still, I'm
    SLOSHING around!"

"I fear I'm getting criptosporidium
    down at my shallow lower end;
Do you realize what the implications 
    are, if that's true? Well, 'cripto'
is a genus of apicomplaxen protozoans,
    that's what!"

"There's more: I fear getting a nest
    of those awful, hateful, aggressive
cottonmouths, like killed that kid, in
    'Lonesome Dove.'

I dread being invaded by carp

I think the turtles are nipping my bass.

And where are my two beautiful 
    Mergansers (really my beauty
marks)---they didn't show last winter!
    That hurt.

Another thing, it's getting harder for
    me to breathe. I need oxygen!
There are a lot of organisms and
    critters depending on me
for oxygen!"

"But, Mil, You haven't heard my
    worst phobia!
I fear the government will run out
    of stuff to do, and some 
bureaucrat will say: 'Hey we should
    drain those pesky ponds---' "
(You know how the government is!)

"Hey, could do do me a big
    favor? When you get home, 
Slip off down to the Rio Grande---
    Take your Coleman ice chest
and get a passel of those 
    SILVERY MINNOWS, bring them
down, and dump them in me!

Then I will be safe evermore, and even
    be protected, by the government!"

"Oh, and you can't help with this one,
    but anyway, I've had this fantasy
of being cold enough, to someday
    have some rainbow trout---
jumping...and aerating me?"

"Thanks for stopping by."

*******30******
BY MIL
6/04/14