The Pool

There's a warn pool slowly flowing
where the bluntened
numbly scarred hills
meet in a narrowing gulch,
and soaking in it
the occasional fool—
led by optimistic pointers,
lorn by the grasping gorsr.—
and such a one was I.

I lay and watched a leaf
break waveringly from its stem,
gliding softly down
to make a little kissing ripple,
swirled away
and weeping smoothly
to a square stone face,
spinning madly.
aimlessly,
until caught by another current
and curved widely around its black.

I felt my body as one
with warm water, and surrounding grass
shivering with each passing breath
and a heavy long-stalked pod
nodding slowly low and high—
then on the pool's side.

—H. R. Unger.