67 The Pool
The pool was clean, but somehow the water was black and impenetrable. There was not a ripple and it reflected the green leaves of the tree that gave it shelter, and the blue sky beyond quite perfectly. If one stood by it with great quietness it gradually revealed its hidden wonders.
Just under the water scores of small black fish became visible. They came up and paddled lazily backwards, their mouths scooping up any edibles that lay on the surface; then one by one the frogs, who had submerged when I first approached, floated up once more with their arms and legs outstretched. Occasionally one of these creatures would mount a large almond leaf that had fallen into the water, and use it as a vantage point from which to pounce on an insect that happened to pass by. One of them came out of the pool in pursuit of a fly, and I was surprised to see that he was as black as the water.
There is an air of mystery about this pool, it has a life and ecology all its own, and I felt it would divulge all its secrets if one were patient enough, and it was a great blessing to abide in its presence calm and unperturbed.
a long grey afternoon,
I walk slowly
to and fro outside my kutir
from below, the excited voices
of children
daring not to be monks for a while
in the forest a wild cock crows
in a primitive way
and dead leaves fall silently.