Weekly Pilgrimage

I drive up Highway Nine,
coming closer curve by curve
to the sacred spring, the thrilling pour
piped down to the side of the road.

All I need flows constantly,
my mantra, while I fill my bottles.
Cold from the earth! This water
exactly that for which I thirst.

A careful cairn of rocks
supports the prodigal pipe.
Buttercups and violets
dance around the flow.

The elevation here is high,
near the Eastern Continental Divide.
Deep green around the spring,
and thrushes sing in jewelweed.

Each time I come is ceremony:
gratitude, cleansing, surrender.
Four years, this healing water
is all I drink and cook with.

My tongue loves its taste,
my cells are flooded with its wonder
and my very body vibrates at
the sacred frequency of purest water .

A rushing clarity awakens
me and every kind of being;
plants, and giggling water nymphs
I nearly hear as I drink.