---

Starting as a seep;
an earth-borne trickle
escaping,
wet and slippery,
into new terrain,
picking up bits and pieces on the way.
And I, an earthly bit of flotsam,
getting carried on the stream
along with a multitude
of other specks,
tumbling and splashing,
swirling in eddies.
Be careful what you pick up there.
I watched a speck
get caught up in the swirling...
Never made it out.

​Turbulent waters pitch and spin me
with other helpless specks,
flailing and struggling
against the strong pull
of the undertow.

A ribald combo dashes past,
mockingly unconcerned with fate
cruising headlong
to the next maelstrom,
where they’re sucked to the bottom
and spit back up
ragged, tattered,
and giggling giddily
over the prize for
their brazen self-indulgence.

​The swift current tugs and pulls me
however it wants
into the broadening and choppy channel.
Swells lift
and drop,
churning toward that vast,
unfathomable destination
where we roll,
serenely, to and fro
eternally.
Or, perhaps,
we are taken into the sky,
and spirited back to the mountain top
to impregnate the earth
and flow again