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Saturday, November 13, 2010

The Brook

The brook ran through high mountain pasture

From failing glacier to pool to pond to lake,

Between banks limned with moss and aster

Rooted in cascades of shattered igneous flake.

I straddled the water running slow over stones,

My boots precariously gripping boulders

The water’s rilling shaped into hipbones.

Further up hunched matching shoulders.

I found a head and rolled it in, midstream.

The shallow, muttering water, unperturbed,

Flowed around and on like a vanished dream.

Provoked, I left not a rock undisturbed

And rolled them in -- the addled stream burst

Banks and drowned the mountain pasture’s thirst.