The High Falls

Without surprise, enlivening the air with sudden white, the rolling stream has hurled itself from its high granite off the mountain, into air, in plumes of falling water down, its shafts wreathed with itself, wings without bird. No longer feathered, here beyond the thunder, once again a stream, quietly below, it is clear as recent air, bathing rounded rocks with clarity. Here, stooping down, we take up handfuls. It is unhurt from its long fall, its change. It is still itself, glorifies our hands with its presence. Lifting it up, we drink it in like thought.