only a pebble
weathered and small
a pebble worn by the river’s current for 12,000 years
smoothed and polished
one among many
sometimes laid bare and exposed on a gravel bar
baking in the hot sun, heat waves of climate change
sometimes mindlessly assaulted by one seeking mere entertainment
skippying across the water, thump, thump, thump, thump
then sinking to the bottom, cool depth of the waters
waiting, waiting, waiting for the seasonal currents of spring runoff
possibility to rise, mobilize, perhaps tumble along the bottom,
maybe return to a gravel bar
or the torrent of meltwater, fevered and hasty, too much for the banks
hurtles the pebble beyond familiar watersheds
depositing in a mass of intermixed substrate; sand, silt, gravel, cobbles, and boulders
diverse, unconsolidated, heap that changes the river’s course