Rivulets

A poem about a beautiful place

Rivulets

Back in the trees
The small leaves, tender bright green
serrated, barely bestemmed
amidst little pink flags
to mark their place
along a stream.

Cold water flowing from
up a hollow          somewhere
unseen, below bone-colored alder trunks
glowing in the dark shade.

Just a broken branch set
on the lawn to show
that this bank is a place of recovery, gentling
saved from harshness, open to softness—as they say:
if the heat does not leave,
look to the cool.

Nearby silent rivulets       gather and collect
and flow down to the soft quiet space
where no one goes
but me.