that murky pond haloed in lustrous orange,
cattail spikes softening into fluff laden spheres,
the hills thicketed in rumex and saltbush,
both leaves and incendiary seeds
that hue toward tawny brown,
then burn in loquacious light. What if
my scant waters were let loose
in a direction suggesting home?
Some long ago uprooting corrected
and beneath my photograph a small note
reading restored, like this mottled swill
of leaf and meadow, or the creekbed
in Cascade hill country redirected
from a southerly slope to resume
its original channel to the north. A faint line
on an old map turned blue again.
That year was the first in seventy that salmon returned
to speckle the clear water with spawning,
which I’d say settles the rivalry
between where we do and do not belong.
On this shore, even willows rusting
the banks speak, even the path harlequinned
with fallen leaves. Seeds gather between my fingers.
Small wings in grass, they scatter.
