St Sinjin Presents: Feeding Time

She pads over to the pond barefoot in the long grass

the blades twist between her toes, causing a horrible ripping sound

with every step she takes as she sways closer to the pond.

Her eyes are down at the dark pool, her face shows me nothing, no expression,

even though her hair is pulled back into a low bun,

I see nothing that tells me fear, disgust, happiness, intrigue.

One hand is holding the bottom of the wooden pail

the other is hovering over the feed inside of it.

The woman stands over the pool, watching her reflection warp

across the water’s edge.

The wind breaks a breeze across the world,

tussling her hair, making the birds call out in excitement of the swell,

but the woman still doesn’t react,

she stares into the pool of dark water as if it were obsidian acres of eye

that stare up at the sky and holds everything it looks upon with ease,

deep enough to make you lean over to attempt to see what was at the bottom -

The woman shifts.

The hand that had hovered over the feed now delves into it.

Birds sing out, as if asking the question,

what is in the water?

Thrashed wheat hisses like extinguished flame

as she disperses it onto the water,

handful by the handful,

breaking her reflection with particles of earth,

embellishing the void with shrapnel of gold,

so much so, the dark pool appears to lighten -

The birds don’t sing and the woman

doesn’t breathe,

her eyes staring at her offence,

watching as the particles drift across the edge,

suspended -

what is in there?

Muscles draw tight to bones, knots sinch into stomachs a silence drifts by -

Jolts of power lash out of the water,

ringed lips lash break the surface then pull back into the depths,

taking the wheat with them in a torrent of muscle and a flash of scales

the wheat is gone, and the ripples dissolve to a jagged smile open as the woman cackles from the pageantry of the pool, satisfied, she swings the pail she leaves to feeds the fish another day.

*

This little poem was based off of the term “feed your feelings.” In the poem, we have a woman coming to feed something, she doesn’t show any expression, not a smile, not a wink in her eye, she is totally devoid of any emotion, until, she feeds the fish in the pool. The pool serves as reflection, the fish, reaction, and the women, expression of emotion and how complex they can be, just like a torrent of muscle and scales, they can erupt out of nowhere, or be gone in an instant.