to stand it on. Then he ate, and watched
the yellow leaves revolving at the lower end
of the pool. They went counterclockwise. Those
in front of him travelled upstream, then swerved
back across the water, rejoining the main current
where it drove against, then along, the far bank. Then,
slowing and swinging on back around, the leaves
came toward him on the quiet water. Alder leaves,
brilliant where sunlit, bright in the shadows.
what the day here would be like
this time, on this or the other
branch of the little river.
He had been doing so since the days
when few people came up here. He still
liked the hidden edge of danger
here, and the change from the useful
and not so useful routines
at home. As he walked along
taking in things around, his mind
might, on its own, work at some
persisting diffi
and the lacking thing arrive by itself,