Four times in the season of dry,
my wife and I came to this place,
this structure of a waterfall.

The sweeping curve of rock lip
ran a broken line from ledge to ledge,
its edge thrust beyond the dark red dirt,

a small pool set some thirty feet below,
a dull showing of flow from some
earlier time before the drought.

This past Lord’s Day
we made our way from the car,
parked away from the muddy ruts

of earlier visitors in the grassy edge.
Mats of leaves littered the ground,
still held to small branches

that had lost their chances
in the torrent of hail
that tormented the trees

two days earlier.
We heard the sound of pounding water,
saw the silver of overflow

spreading across the flat floor of stone,
and spilling to the channel
seventy feet below where we stood.

At the base, a light mist drifted downstream,
another seam for the thundering rain
that came in pulsing sheets.

Visitors stood on the edges of bare-stone bluffs
while others scuffed their shoes
on the broken boulders beneath.

All had come to catch the view
of slanting sun sparkling silver water
in its cresting run beyond the glistening edge.

Rather than doubt the glory of a seasonal thing,
we should remember that the believing eye
can see beyond the season of dry
and that even a thing of blessing
can bring harm along with thriving.

H. Arnett
5/3/16