A lesson in treading lightly
sometimes for miles
a trail where everything
vanishes except the next rock:
blue-green, heathered by moss,
weathered by the same water
that Heraclitus brooked.

After each leap, critters loosen
from the waterlogged oak,
a feast for the creek bed,
that dams the cool fluidity,
loam-perturbed, lifted
by the skin at the arch—