Teresian Wells

IV. Children and Deliverance

A child bobs his head above water
and asks me in a loud, chummy,
out-of-place Dixie drawl
what all I am doing.

I am
searching up and down the burning shore
for bits of polished, tumbled glass,
less for the seizing of them
out of the jaws of the moody northern lake,
than for the witnessing
of their brilliance. Amber, smoky green,
quartz and aquamarine, the occasional
gleamy cranberry and incessant flares of cobalt
rouse the lapped sands
and a selfish, seamy world of broken bottles,
lost or
flung deliberately,
renews itself in jewels.

The child, with a keen sense
of what’s called for,
shakes the lake
and chatter from himself
and combs quietly
in the dazing heat.

He brings all of his
fiery finds,
unreluctantly,
to me.