In the hot afternoon
In the burned meadow
The brook is only a dampness
Blood on the dry white stones
In the hot afternoon
In the hillside pasture
Climb where the April torrent poured
There is life beyond
The broken fence, in the locust grove
There is water standing in pools
And a kingfisher sleeping over
The minnows trapped for his feast
The walls draw closer now and over rock
Somewhere is the sound of trickling water
The banks are steeper (climbing)
The shade is deeper (stumbling)
The pools are deeper (climbing)
And here at last they are empty of minnows
See in their depths the arrowlike shadows of trout
In the hot afternoon, from the burned meadow
Climb from the hillside pasture, the locust grove
Climb to find water, stumbling into the gorge
Climbing beyond to the vine-entangled swamp
Where cat-briars hide the brook that is deep and cold
And trout have their sunless kingdom. Climb
Stumble and climb for the source of it all is here
– Here the final and secret pool
With green scum at the edge of it
A cloud of midges over it
And bubbling from the depths of it
Stirring the frogs’ eggs and the fishes’ eggs
Here the source, the limpid and living water
Rising from white sand.
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