bare feet slip slowly beneath cerulean currents,

standing still atop smooth pebbles tempered by time and 

deliberately driven downriver over decades and decades.

trousers rolled up just below his knees,

the old man carefully selects a stone and draws it from 

below. in it he feels the pulse of a stream that

seeped into his very being from a young age and colored 

his cerulean heart. every bend and bank, 

every twist and tumble he has walked,

watching fish flicker past and crayfish crawl from beneath

submerged logs with claws curiously checking the currents.

he has painted and photographed, fished and floated,

explored and noted every single inch of the creek

yet every afternoon he hikes down the hill 

expecting to see something brand new.

nowadays, he brings his granddaughters,

teaching them to love the cool waters and simple shade

provided by the weeping willows. as they dance and play

along the grassy path, he makes them crowns from discarded

willow branches that sit perfectly atop their messy curls. 

they ask, “grandpa, why do the willows weep?” and each time 

the old man smiles and gives a different answer,

wading back to them with gifts scooped from the river floor.

but today, the cerulean man stands alone in the cerulean stream,

with a cerulean smile and a cerulean stone,

stuck far away in a cerulean dream.