Because someone thirsty enough to trust Old Testament wisdom followed the deepening greens and found a spring, silver in the shadow of blue ridges, I can kneel beneath this spill of willow limbs a century later and drink water risen from roots to enter the evening through a spout, the way Cherokee stories say the first people were born, washing into the world of such trees whose bark, like the water I cup to my parched mouth, tastes leafy and sweet and has the power, the old ones say, to heal. Copyright 2001 by The Modern Poetry Association. This poem appears in the April 2001 issue of @3Poetry Magazine.@1 http://poetrymagazine.org |