In this kinetic poem, the lines rise before our eyes like bubbles from a diver exploring the depths of a reservoir. The words in each line are formatted using size and position to direct the readers’ attention towards nouns, verbs, and adjectives, while de-emphasizing articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. The arrangement of each poetic or phrasal line into multiple lines clustered and spaced like stanzas makes the commas at the end of each seem vestigial, when the spatial and chronological dimensions create such a paused pace for the poem. There is something eerie about this poem, involving a tall drowned pecan tree, a bass, and man— a fellow diver, perhaps? Dive into this poem a few times and see what literal and symbolic things you discover in its depths.
Featured in Poems That GO.
