The golfers leave early --
September or October --
it's just you and the hickories,
the asters, the goldenrod --
and the reservoir --
the ripples shimmering eastward.
  
Steamshovels and bulldozers labored here one summer,
digging a hole for the water,
piling up the earth.
  
You walk on the bank they made,
seeing beyond the golf course --
the houses and barns,
the swampy gray-brown fields of goldenrod,
the railroad tracks,
the pines.
  
Your thoughts plunge to the reservoir's bottom
then turn
racing to the farthest field.