but I’d rather step in:
kick my shoes off,
peel my socks off,
dip one toe in to start.
And if it’s cold, all the better
for when I slip one whole foot in
and then the other,
let the small pebbles tickle my sole
and jagged rocks nip my heel,
watch the blue veins of my feet
dance under ripples and rolls
of the current, now
disturbed by ankle one and ankle two.
I take my time in streams
and in return, streams take time with me.
I might stand as still as I can
and wait for the minnows to accept me
as the stream itself and say to me
you are our home now:
you are the stream.
after Peter Sirr
Eileen Ellis