fourteen pebbles and nine dandelion heads in,

past the camphor tree and all along the bladed glen,

I twist my head towards the hum of insect feet

padding along the brilliant, wide theatre of a dirt path

I catch the glimmer of

something carrying itself along a stream -

a golden seam of 3pm light

tipping itself along the lashes and eyes of

the visible gauze between the water

and the swell of tadpoles swimming through it;

flashes of brown and hazel,

and my hand, reaching tenderly into the

body of the water,

all at once within and without; the

place where to stream begins and ends

the hole in the bottom of the bucket

to see, to spy, to glance

the shine of an acorn, a seed, a handful

of things that become something else

at any busstop, in any drip of rain, in every glow

of light beaming through the pallor of black

there is always the chance

for galloping feet, rather than the drum of petroleum tires;

there is always the chance

that any given seed

will transform into the shade of a luminous tree

laced with hundreds of rings inside its wooden bosom;

there is always the truth

that any body of water

will carry itself to the roots

of some silent underground symphony

whose gentle music

makes magic as wild and unbridled

as a cat

arriving at a busstop

ready to take you

 

to the any-which-where

we are all always going