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Bamboo Shoots
Kevin McDaniel
A terracotta full with variegated bamboo,
submerged just below the waterline of a pond bog,
the kind that looks like paint brushes showered
under a spigot before tucked and pressed inside a paper
towel,having flared bristles with dried paint residue hours
later, pushing through the pea gravel, above the waterline,
reaching for light. Early spring stimulates their proud
ascent. Having survived the pond keeper’s November
pruning shears, icy Februaries, and cosmic koi appetites
aroused after a winter slumber, their leaflets spread,
bathed by the August sun, while the other bog plants become
crunchy as bagged plastic Easter grass.
But now, the terracotta lies under a back porch, a home for an
occasional transient daddy longlegs and stink bugs—
only an empty hull after the shoots became a turnstile for
the koi spawning ritual: Half broken and pressed down with
egg deposits. Yet, two shoots—surviving remnants of the
assault—have taken root in a floating pot, alongside a Cork-
screw Rush and moss tuffs, floating and determined to stay
rooted.
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