Between the watercress and the dream,
Salmo trutta, you and I
leap for a moment from this stream,
cracking the factual shell of my eye.

Out of the blink-held glitter of your gills
you lift my vision to the deeper flow
of another, wilder spring that spills
echoing through the cosmos from the rock below.

There in the currents of your art,
rinse the insensitive skin from me,
wash the worms from beneath my bark
and lead me to your liberty.

22 September 1975