Poem by Jack Troy: Befriending a Nameless Stream
Category:EducationBefriending a Nameless Stream
“The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
Wendell Berry
I am of two minds about the stream running
beside the path I’ve walked for forty years.
Early on, we were level with one another
but here it’s carved a narrow gorge
deeper than I am tall; an easy leap for deer.
Last week, a day after the rain stopped,
it spoke to me in six languages, first in the narrow cascade
where it leapt away from a clay shelf
to a frothy yammering in a narrow bowl
it means to deepen with mad hydraulics.
From there it slithered, slowing its passage,
catching up with itself behind a sturdy limb
fallen crosswise, trapping twigs and leaves,
where reflections float steady,
mirroring a pine’s bare root.
Above the streambed, inches deep and
soft with settlings, a dace flutters,
then another and another. Have they made it
through that lisping filigree of leaks
breaching the flotsam dam downstream?
Jack Troy
