Hundred-Acre Brook

Its blue line on the map begins amid
close-together contour lines,
at 1900 feet, miles from any trail.

Must be a spring up there.
It’d be worth the bruises and scrapes
of bushwhacking to find out.

This one joins Shannon Brook
below the waterfalls. Afterward, it is all
Shannon Brook—like a wife

taking her husband’s last name,
though still herself.
One stream, then, down to the lake.

The goal of working backward
to its source would be
to know the brook, beginning to end:

its lifespan, so to speak.
(Except that it still keeps on coming.)
If I ever did locate the spring,

I would kneel to drink,
and return refreshed for whatever day
the sea will receive me.

Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, where he has judged high-school Poetry Out Loud competitions. His work appears in Except for Love: New England Poets Inspired by Donald Hall (Encircle Publications), and Covid Spring, Vol. 2 (Hobblebush Books). His own poetry books, Wooden Nutmegs and Magnificat, are available from Encircle Publications.