A BEAD OF WATER

A lone bead of water
finds its path down a granite face
beneath a layer of mountain snow
to begin its journey to a distant sea.

It merges with countless other,
each tiny bead reacting to warmth and gravity,
pooling in the rock’s fissures and pockets
brought by a thousand eroding years.

From other deep banks of snow,
more trickles, more beads formed a stream,
any life within yet too small to see,
descending to larger pools and rivulets.

Living things appeared, some to drink,
countless others at home within the water
as a river is renewed from the heights
of mountain and forest.

Lower and lower the river flows,
bearing like beads of water to the sea
to toss about in ocean waves
until Nature’s cycle will begin anew.

Summer suns and winter storms
will bear aloft that and other beads
to return again to another mountain,
each to its own path to the sea.

gus daum May, 2013