By the Round Pond

You watch yourself. You watch the watcher too –

A ghostly figure on the garden wall.

And one of you is her, and one is you,

If either one of you exists at all.

How strange to be the one behind a face,

To have a name and know that it is yours,

To be in this particular green place,

To see a snail advance, to see it pause.

You sit quite still and wonder when you’ll go.

lt could be now. Or now. Or now. You stay.

Who’s making up the plot? You’ll never know.

Minute after minute swims away.