When the Earth was young the pond's amniotic fluid suffused the whole planet, gestating life buoyed up from its depths. Watching ducks paddling on the pond as I paddled with them, dunked my blue-green feathered head underwater for something to eat, but found only a question: What have you become? On the lips of a bone-dry pond, "the heaven-descended bard" will someday sing: Empty beer cans, half-eaten burgers, stale silicone chips, radioactive baby food, spent ammunition... the midden of another failed civilization. What have we become?