Pollen Paisleys

Rippling patterns play upon Lake Champlain’s surface. Pollen, lifted and carried by the wind, settles on the surface, coalesces into golden rafts. Pollen paisleys emerge, ephemera fading but not forgotten. Gentle gyrations, found art, fleeting.

Perhaps paisleys are not what you see. A pollen scum, unwelcoming to swimming humans and dogs. The mallards don’t mind. Nor the Canada Geese.

But I see paisleys in clouds and stream eddies. The oat milk foam atop my tea after stirring. Steam dancing a slow motion dirge above the hot tub on a chill morning. Paisleys on pants and paisleys in poems, it’s inevitable that I’ll be captivated by these pollen patterns, predictable that I’ll see miragelike pollen paisleys where another sees foul flotsam.

Pollen Paisleys

Yellow swirls upon 
a lake’s aqueous canvas,
wind painted pollen. 

Rose-tinted glasses, for some, but for me, paisley painted spectacles. Cross-pollination…