Fern Fronds and Empty Ponds

On feeling empty.

That day, late spring, this feeling of foreboding of nothingness had crept in and made it's nest in the pit of my stomach. There was nothing for it, I'm afraid, I picked up my usual restore, a book of sumi poetry...nothing and nothing more.

Couldn't shake it, my heart was squeezed by the hollowness just below and the sharp pain of it breaking jabbed and stabbed, needling away.

I turned from the book, opened the door and walked through, on to the little patio I loved so much. I remember the smell of the earth after a long hard rain...all ozoney and fresh and new. That fragrance of composting deposits of leaves and needles from the fall before. This began to fill me. Then, over to the right, beneath the