I know of a spring on a shale hill near my home.
   I sit some summer evenings and ponder it.
      I know where it is…
               but I do not know it.

I know that I don’t understand it any better
   than the developer who calculates the cost of building around it,
   or the woman who taps it for wash water,
   or the farmer who plunders it with long irrigation trenches.
But I linger and ponder this spring,
   its frosty liquid voice preaching a counterpoint
      to the warm July noontime,
   speaking mysteries of dark limestone depths
      as it beams brightly,
      reflecting the sun rays among which it dances,
To plunge down the gray-and-rust silt bank to run between 
      my feet…
            undistinguished in clay.

I listen to this little fountain.
   I wade through it,
   It rinses my feet of mud,
   I kneel by it,
   I drink from it…
            but I do not know it.

Perhaps now that I have told you of this spring
   you can seek it out,
      linger there too…
         tell me about it.
   For you may know it better than I.
      Or the developer.
      Or the farmer.
      Or the washwoman.

Or maybe we can just reverence there together
   cooling our grass-stained July toes,
      watching them be washed clean.

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