We all need beginnings,
to say I was there,

to begin with a stir, a trickle, a gush,
then own the journey of river and time.  

But the flat field here is inauspicious –
nothing to show for ten months of the year.

I could go to Lydwell
or to Seven Springs,
where they battled for the title of head of the river,

but I’d rather believe in where I am –
a stone and a bench
to mark this place,

rather believe
that beneath me the river counts its days,
stays patient and deep,
waits to be knowable.