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Pursuit

I followed a green ball

down a crystal stream,

saw it pause in pools

and leap from overhangs.

Whitewater broke apart

the flat houses of debris.

The shadow frightened trout,

the shadow running over the gravel

which turns to mud one mile before the Pacific

where my object would float, still,

until the waves smashed down.

It gets stuck between rocks,

freed only with a storm.

I can’t hear it carom otherwise

over the alpine murmur.

A bird plans to intercept my traveler

but I scare her into a tree.

I only touched my subject once

when the current split

and we found ourselves alone

on the surface of a trapped pond.