Slap

Slap Robert Cording (bio) The paddle of its tail lifted upand came down hard, like a slap across the face, mine, and then,as if I needed one more, the beaver, like the pond's own Zen master,smacked the water again, lost as I was inside my sweatshirt's hood,shuttered in rain-dreary thoughts and a March gray afternoon'snothing-special-is-going-to-happen mood. Here I am, startled still,but still, as I'm prone to do, thinking of some literary reference, Thoreaudrifting on Walden Pond, striking a paddle on the side of his canoeto stir the woods up and wake the echo of the place we're in.I try clapping my hands hard twice to stir myself, then take my hood off, waitfor the sound to extend outward, find its echo and return. After it does,the silence of the pond comes back, but enlivened by the leaves of swamp maplesin a gust of wind, and the water [End Page 156] traveling in swirls of ripples. A flockof the first red-winged blackbirds tumble up into a ball then narrow to a long linethat turns, glides, and settles again, disappearing in the reeds along the far shore;I stay put a while longer watching the beaver, who, done with me, is paddling offtoward its hermit hut of sticks leaving me behind, exposed,my face reddening in the cold drizzle of rain. [End Page 157] Robert Cording Robert Cording taught English and creative writing at College of the Holy Cross for thirty-eight years. He has published ten collections of poems, the latest of which is In the Unwalled City (Slant, 2023), a book exploring the journey of grief following the death of his son, as well as a volume of essays on poetry and religion, Finding the World's Fullness: On Poetry, Metaphor, and Mystery (Slant, 2019). He lives in Woodstock, CT. Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press