Not a foreign substance

I am hard pressed to describe

the slow glide of leaf shadows

gold-rimmed, along the brown bottom

of the glass-smooth, shallow river

They looked like a pod of something living —

One-celled protozoa, magnified many times

They moved like a companionable

group of friends,

drifting down an avenue, arm in arm

The leaves that made them were a different shape —

Pointed, narrow willow leaves

somehow projected into near-round ovals —

And the water’s surface held the leaves so thickly

that they darted from the probing

of my curious hand,

and clung to one another

unless I lifted one

clear away

The ripples that my hand made

radiated out in rings

of gold and shadow

moving slowly out along the river bottom

In my awe and wonder

I only later noticed

from its coolness and its freshness

that this was water

not a foreign substance —

something that I know.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 6, 2013