Here I splash in my babbling brook, happy, safe, content
Where I know every sound and turn
I plunge deep into the cool stream and stay under
With the familiar submarine domain about me.
There are places in my stream where I feel foreign currents
Unseen tributaries, dark sources of my watery home
These I avoid lest I’m carried away
Sometimes I hear other splashing I raise my head to see
Some misguided simpleton playing gayly in the wrong stream
I call but they dive under, drowning out my invitations
Briefly caught in an unseen eddy I’m whisked against a stone
Injured, dazed I climb onto the rock standing tall to clear the pain
I look about to take comfort in the majesty of my home
Instead I see millions of streams, each home to a stranger,
Lying as a confused tangled rope unwinding to the horizon
Each stream flowing with the topography
Merging and splitting, rising and falling, churning and still
I look back to my little stream, the joy of it,
I look upstream to see whence it came
And down to see it fork 1000 times
This stream I will always love
Jumping into stream after stream I explore, each familiar, each foreign
Am I looking for a better stream?
Each creek seems very much like the last
Would I even recognize mine now?
The stream was my home but now I turn,
My attention drawn to the valley, home of the streams
Then beyond where mountain streams cascade from violent heights
Those streams are much different than these.
Then I wonder about this world, home of the valley.
A new joy flows into me. There is much to see.
-T. Weeks
(A response to “BOOK XI: A Song of Joys”)
Life Immense 