4

 

Nothing gives itself up like water.

To see it in a lake

pocked by rain

you would never know.

Not just that it leaps blind

off a ledge

onto rocks,

but that it never

resists anywhere

it is flung, bent,

lifted, wrenched,

shattered to

drops, to mist,

spun,

held back, and

again let go

down.

 

            *

Stone-stepping

across a creek,

I miss my footing,

slip in over my boot-top.

A trout splashes up and over.

His way, my stumble,

out of my element.

 

            *

Sleek milk glass

shin deep

by twenty yards wide.

 

            *

In a shallows over rust-streaked gray rock

trailing feathers of lime moss,

a faintest lattice of wave,

light and moving water

pool-shiver,

back-current shimmy,

fish,

no fish.

Wherever there is water.

 

terWAterWAterterterWAWAWAterterWA

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