Poems by Dan Overgaard

Seeing & Believing

by Dan Overgaard

From Canary Summer 2020

Dan lives on a hill above Puget Sound in an urban watershed supporting salmon migration from the Salish Sea to nearby Lake Washington, Cedar River and many smaller creeks.

Copernicus notwithstanding, the sun rolled
overhead, a hot old stone through smoky skies.
Some primitive shadows fell around, like ash,
and it was hard to breathe. We could not have run
for anything—for a bus, or for our lives.
It was almost archaic, the heavy way
we pushed back from the table, leaving the bones.
Discussion stalled, we paid, and then, emerging
one by one, we looked around, just trying to
absorb all the changes, why we were so stunned—
that not so far away, some worlds were ended.

© Dan Overgaard

Shy Ponds

by Dan Overgaard

From Canary Spring 2021

Most ponds are shy, reclusive in the trees
and less athletic than the average lake,
less entertaining and gregarious,
much less flamboyant in their mode of dress,
less likely to be chosen for a sport,
less apt—like rivers—to be going out,
exploring, growing, never coming back.
They might enjoy the friendship of a creek
but not a rushing, energetic one
likely to overrun and wipe them out.
In winter months, a pond might disappear,
subsiding with a self-effacing sigh
into a tangled bed of leaves and reeds,
turning a lonely shoulder to the sky
and tucking in to wait the darkness out—
arising slowly from this dormancy
when hunger pulls it out to fill again.
In summer ponds are truly at their best,
quietly serving, on a busy day,
the endless postal circuits of the bees,
and setting up a local garden show
with modest prizes and a snack or two,
exhibits with aromatherapy,
and cool, medicinal displays of mud.
Late summer’s teasing breeze turns harsh in fall,
taunting the ponds as everyone goes home
in darkness, shivering. Muscling up,
the winds come from all sides, and like to snatch
away the modest dressing that the trees
have draped around the ponds. Yet once again
the gentle ponds persist by turning in—
their shy resilience wins, surprising us.