Spring is the time I put on tall rubber boots,
carry shovel and rake out to play with the stream.
I seek winter’s treasures: plastic bag-shreds,
molded-leaf blankets, branches sodden
into a mockery of tree-ness. I take each find
from the water’s fastness. The stream runs
more quickly, changes the rules from treasure hunt
to keep-away, laughs as it splashes into my boots
and rubber gloves, giggles when I scratch its bottom
with my shovel, scrape away gravel, expose rocks.
The stream races, now, faster than I can keep up,
carrying hints of summer to the Chesapeake Bay.
Author Bio
Chevy Chase resident Beth Kevles has been participating in poetry workshops at The Writer’s Center for several years. Coquelin Run is a spring-fed stream that runs alongside the projected Purple Line route in Chevy Chase.
