Moravian Mission Spring 

It’s not a familiar idyllic spring;

not in shadowed woods, nor trickling,

from ferny, mossed banks, mumblings

of soothing myths……no.

·

I regularly pass the washed out sign

tilting on this shoulderless street,

steep banked and crowned with iris &

Cherokee rose caressing white porches

aslant, dozing under ancient Oak spells;

my shortcut to CVS, Ingles and Ace.

“Moravian Mission Spring” it reads

with the obligatory arrow pointing to

a thin, discreet lane and bar gate

that, though open, screams privacy,

usually deterring my diffident nature’s curiosity.

·

But, today, braving the chance of trespass,

I enter under canopying trees emerging

into opened pastured space replete with

picnic shed, “Available for Reservations”

with two reunion dates posted already.

To the left, the spring in sun, in a slight depression,

lies silently within its well-kept stone surround.

·

I stand, wondering what epoch created

this pool, what quantities and qualities of men

and beast and gods have sipped its cold sanctity.

Ghosts-grams of time tick up, bubbling

from the shallow face; no numerals or hands

or heralding sounds order their approach

in ether globes in the unceasing flow

from the past of this place, this Gaia eye.

Through silent aquifers of space-time,

tiny as fingers, large as centuries,

they emerge into the bright, enormous

air of this place and time to speak,

not as or of me, but as another, unknown as I:

·

An earth-toned Cherokee child, sweet coffee

eyes gleaming, flings flurries of cold water

and sand with broad bare feet and hands

wetting others only he can see and tease.

He straightens, jumping from the spring

as if caught, but, unafraid, speaks into my eyes:

·

 “I am Adahy, Lives in forest, known here as John.

My father sent me here to learn,

not your facts and sums, your customs:

If we could take up your ways he thought

we might remain, but your greed and hate were

too strong, too blind, too fleet to endure.

You invoked a “God” that I still can’t see,

or touch, even now, who hides above in a far place

removed from his children and this creation.

Why would he not crave to walk with you?

·

·

This is where I grew in strength and first

knew awareness of our fate—-our scattering.

My bones, covered with stones on a red-earth hill

along the trail following the sun, never

knew arrival.  My spirit remains, dwells here.

My bones tear the air with screams of leaving, still.”

·

Blinking his sweet coffee eyes from pain to glee,

he leaps back into the ancient speaking spring,

splashing and taunting others only he can see.