The Traveler

After so much clatter
downhill, the ceaseless
recommendations
of gravity and age
pulling me pell-mell,
I stopped.

Perhaps the pool
was blue then.
A cloud mimicked breath
or the slow release
of an old thought
unwound by wind
through one moment,
threading into the next.

In that clearing
hunched with stones
grown smooth and green
I saw a shaded place to pause,
to consider possible velocities
beyond the hurtling world.