Stepping Stones

As we placed those seven stepping stones – brashy bricks from a bramble-toppled wall –

the quick brook slackened her prattling chatter. We heard her bottle-necked water bicker against our fresh steps, prone to what water knew, or had known for secret seasons –

gravel, sand, bedrock, her kingfishering freshet swollen swift after the March thaw.

Leaf-surprised sunlight struggled on her sheen. We had broken in, it seemed, on her privacy.

The water nagged and fretted around our stones as if the brook were done considering our toil.

Now silently she drowned our little day stone by stone by stone by stone by stone.

80