A Pebble in the Gravel

Fly-fishing in the North Yuba River

made for miniature revelations

that rose out of casting
and catching, wading and releasing;
out of breathing, walking, slipping,
falling, rising; from deepening dusks, darkening
pools. Sometimes the stream

clarified underwater gravel and boulders;
whorls of debris appeared as if
magnified: and a trout came up,
stared at duplicity, declined. Water
returned to its blurred blend
of liquid window, liquid door.
Sometimes a hatch of gnats
exploded into existence--its own,
mine, the canyon's, Earth's. Or: suddenly

a snake.  Or: a deer, staring, black
nostrils flaring. Or: kingfisher, ouzel,
hawk, robin.  Bat. Or: one's awareness
of one's self as a loose knot
of ambition, instinct, appetite,
motor skills, boredom--together cast
briefly over water, offered.

Sometimes the stream
roared quietly, mumbled forcefully,
and against such sound (North
Yuba, North Yuba), awareness
of one's thin, tentative presence
in presence might rise briefly,
leap, re-submerge.