Waterfall

Cliff divers of light arc outward in water drops forced into hangtime by motion of the replenishing current of water, style points of the drop come from the flow, while light's reflection presents individuality and character on this escapist radical flash life of a drop of liquid's cascading existence in the only environment by which it is defined.

Slippery flash of a fish is shadowed on the bottom of the calm eddy, refracting the form of himself amid waves and swirls and rocks and cut-tree sunshine cozy on the surface edge of fluidity. His ghostly shape is life and my eyes register his presence and also absorb the imperfections of him in my sensory intake--the ripples, the phantom forms, the hint at deceitful mirage, or second-guessed imagined actuality.

Chrome flick causes eye reactions from underwater and from above, on the rocks, and we turn to understand the intent of the interruption between man and fish. The planes of definition of actuality and form and science are cracked. The noise waves reveal a casting motion, the air whistles the movement and direction, the wall of water responds to the object breaking into its ever-alterating form with exerted pressure outward from the contact. I watch the tail kick in the fish's fear, watch him turn to the shiny intruder; I register apprehension from the guilty pressure of foreknowledge, and rend inwardly the pain of the fish's bite, and we part.

The white foam of water rolls over smoothed rock edges, falling into itself to reform and journey onward toward the beginning of the cycle, the air is still and cool, the tree leaf patterns peek colors of the closing day sun. I stand alone on slippery rocks today, I stand and watch the water rush by, I separate life and death.