Headwaters

Chris Ellery

May 14, 2023

In all the years I lived 

in San Marcos

I never went to see

the famous swimming pig

through the glass-bottom boat

at Aquarina Springs.

But often on summer Saturdays

I would snorkel below the falls,

headwaters of the San Marcos River.

Up from the Edwards Aquifer

through 2000 springs,

the water defines clarity.

Don’t get trapped under the falls,

they warned me, 

but the pressure and the motion

pushes away all trace of sediment

to carve a bright fantastic world

of stone washed by eons.

Sometimes I let the river wash 

my porcine flesh

like a lazy fish downstream

and I would float and swim

in a slow and shady pool, 

stirring the silt with my flippers

and peering into crevices

along the shore, habitat

of the Texas blind salamander.

Really I was just a little creature

made of water and dust, 

awash with delight

in the deepest, purest love of earth, 

seeing 

at that moment

everything there was to see around me

and nothing at all behind me

or ahead.

Chris Ellery is the author of Canticles of the Body and four other poetry collections. Contact him at ellerychris10@gmail.com.