About The Months When The Pond Dried Up Poem by Raj Dronamraju

Around the beginning of spring (April/May) , the pond would dry up
The space it occupied became a big muddy hole
And then when summer hit, it became a dry indentation adorned with outbreaks of daisies, violets, and other smartly colored flowers

In the rainier parts of the year, we kids piled into an old rowboat and paddled around
In the dry months, that rowboat was still tethered to the small dock
Its undisturbed neglected form remind one of the skeletal bodies of ships wrecked on hostile coasts

At sundown, I ran around the dry pond bed chasing the armies of swollen, warty toads who carried on summer courtship
Their tadpoles along with water striders were the only lifeforms in the body of water months

And then the first big rainstorm of the year would fill the dry creek bed that fed into the pond
The water would come back with its dirty bathroom smell
And the cycle repeats like a washing machine
Memories on wash, rinse, spin dry, repeat