The pump lets out a diesel roar
\nAn industrial lion, trumpet of civilization’s return
\nThe surface shudders as sublayers are drawn
\nand spilled on a distant patch of grass scrub.<\/p>\n
Frogs squirm, algae drifts, turtles surface nervously
\nas 3 years of pollen, leaves, and life is exiled from the bottom up.
\nSomewhere below a mechanical Carybdis strikes fight or flight fear
\ninto the tiny world of muck and water, dirt and larvae.<\/p>\n
Power washers fire up, unleashing tight spiral sprays
\nEager puppies joining their voices to the great howl of the pump.
\nInch by inch they wash away the years of neglect:
\nAlgae green turns to scale white turns to unreal blue.<\/p>\n
Thousands of gallons make a one-day-only stream
\nAs a bottom unseen since diaper-days turned to preschool
\nBecomes visible once more, with four turtles, countless leaves,
\nand a lonely, long-forgotten, torpedo-toy resolving; images from wet static.<\/p>\n
A few hours (thousands of gallons), and the pump goes silent.
\nThe power washers hiss at the exposed floor, loosening scale;
\nIt flows deep, clean and bright as beach sand on a fast current.
\nA shop vac captures the last of it, along with pollywog holdouts.<\/p>\n
A pair of hoses refill the artificial pond, no longer a habitat,
\nAs we drive with a carload of shelled refugees.
\nOne by one, my children set down the four pool turtles
\nAnd wave as they vanish into the reassuring muck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The pump lets out a diesel roar An industrial lion, trumpet of civilization’s return The surface shudders as sublayers are drawn and spilled on a distant patch of grass scrub. Frogs squirm, algae drifts, turtles surface nervously as 3 years of pollen, leaves, and life…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63283,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62530\/revisions\/63283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}