The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Schmidt, Michael. “The Pond.” 1980 issue of Wiley Critical Quarterly.

Note that all parenthetical citations refer to the line number from which the quotation is taken.

"The Pond" by Michael Schmidt was originally published in Wiley Critical Quarterly before appearing in Schmidt's 1983 collection Choosing a Guest. In the poem, a drought-stricken pond looses the brilliant vitality that once enthralled the speaker. The local community always warned of the danger that a child might drown in the pond, and the speaker echoes this warning in a metaphysical sense. This ultimately conveys the message that environmental degradation also erodes the human capacity for imagination and interconnection. "The Pond" expresses some of the tenets of ecopoetry, though some readers may not consider this poem as a definitive example of the genre due to the lack of human accountability to the environment.