Poems by
Owi Nandi

Summer at the lake

a poem by Owi Nandi

The down of the swan’s bow dances waxen
on the soft water surface,
indulges in ease,
being unable to think of the next tempest.
Emerald dragonflies are carving jags
into the cheesy air,
twitch into the small inlets,
are whirring on the spot during the next breath.
Their copper-colored abdomen is laced up
as the waist-line of a female motor-cyclist
wrapped in leather.
The corpses of last and distant year’s leaves
rest on the muddy floor of the lake-
lost in growing old, blacking on,
bordered by dusky beechnuts.
The water crinkles on the cheeks,
plays and washes against its swimmers,
around the rushstalks ascending over-slenderly from the depth
and the precious butter balls
of the flowering Nuphars*.

*Nuphars are yellow water lilies