The passage

When I was young waterways seemed
to trouble the farmers I was born to
as though troubled by an intruder.

Today I praise this web of brooklets
appearing before us as we go,
all the narrows and inlets,
bygone other places
and faces I used to know.

Who other than my father
suffered and endured
the course of flooding
tributaries and current
whenever those rivulets emerged?

A wildland meadow with water pooling through,
berries on the bush.
when I was young I'd pack out and inhabit
the woods where no one went,
a place no one knew.

When I grow old I hope I'll still be
poking around in the woods,
assembling what I can out of trees.