One for the Dipper
Cinclus mexicanus
To be as sure
& light-footed among rapids
as the dipper:
slate-gray puff
of feather & song
twiglike dusky feet
dip, dip, on a sudsing rock
cheeps off upstream
no higher than spray...
one yesterday--
drinking delicate little
beakfuls
from a boulder
mid-Dungeness
wild with three weeks rain.
From In Blue Mountain Dusk: Poems by Tim McNulty, © 1992, Pleasure Boat Studio, New York