A Turtle's Head

I dawdle down this trail next to a chunky patch of the shallow river. A painted turtle’s head flares into focus under the faded sun.

His head pokes out the water riffles in the stony shoal of the stream. It idles through the rubble and rock-ribbed maze with a grace of locomotion, and then enters some clumpy water, breezes in a new phase.

It’s a bit hidden in a hodgepodge now – suddenly camouflaged in a rugged clump of muddle – torn soggy leaves, silk doughy sticks, and worn-out, watered-down masses of nature that looks like shit. A thick layer of chocolate malt water smothers his head.

Mysteriously, the head creates a tiny wake: a path in his past that quickly emerges – damp and dead nature that magnifies and jumbles, posing to be alive because of the slow moving stream – the nature just daggers and seems to live off the water’s soft bubbles. After it clutters, all the rubble diverges.

The head, in a water bout, tries to proceed, on to the other side of the stream.

He’s eager to get there. Slow, but eager.