Current Over My Feet
The valley stream brushes past my ankles and flows on down. Where the current touches, a small fish passes by. In that moment, watching the fish brush over my foot and go on down as if nothing had happened, I think that I might be allowed to pass like that too. Morning light trembles on the surface, and under the water are the fish's shadow and the tops of my feet, together. I didn't move for a long time. Only where the fish had passed did the water ripple and settle again. That settling holds me a long while. The water still brushes past my ankles and flows on down. With my feet in that current, I spend a morning chasing nothing at all.
There was the sound of a stone slipping from underfoot and sinking into the water. Even after the surface closed, that one spot stayed unusually calm. I stood a long time looking at that calm. The sun tilted little by little, and the shaded water's edge grew cold.
After the surface closed over where the stone sank, while that calm held, I heard the current murmuring as it passed over the stone. I didn't move my feet while that sound lasted. The water went on flowing past the stone, beneath me.
I once waited for a bus by a mountain stream. Someone perched on a rock across the way had taken off their shoes and was dipping their feet in the water. Until the bus came, they never lifted their head.
That person who dipped their feet in the water while waiting for the bus must have been like the fish that brushed the top of my foot. Watching the water come down, I too want to sit on that rock and dip my feet a while.