The sage leaf floated down, spinning in the air, 
and landed near the creek’s far bank, 
far from where I’d expected. 
The air currents just above the water’s surface 
followed the wash from the higher bank. 
Air and then water carried the leaf 
almost to the sandy edge. 
But not quite. 

Slowly, cautiously, it moved downstream, 
pushed far from the center by the busy cross current
of the water hurrying down from the far hillside. 
Now and then it would hesitate, 
as if stopping to complete some unseen task. 
Water bugs, the kind that never get wet, 
spend their lives suspended on the water’s skin, 
had taken on the sage leaf as a curiosity. 
One by one, stalking, tasting, perhaps wondering 
at another strange form of surface walker, 
they delayed the passage of the leaf, 
but only for a moment. 

Gradually it reached for the deeper water 
and picked up speed, 
becoming part of the faster moving rush. 
Then suddenly, spun around on itself, 
it was caught in a tiny whirlpool 
within the protective hollow of a rock. 
There it circled, almost escaping into the current, 
then gathered back in by the captured waters 
twirling in the shade of the rock. 
Finally, a broken edge caught a passing twig, 
and a new balance broke the cycle, 
freeing the leaf to roll among the splashing, 
bubbling waters. 

A bend in the creek, another strong cross current, 
and again the leaf was pushed out of the mainstream,
closer again to the water’s edge. 
This time snagged on a tiny pebble, 
it could no longer follow the water’s flow. 

There it will stay, till the next rain swells the creek. 
Then the sage leaf will find another chance 
to travel downstream, 
to bring its aroma and its blessing 
to rocks and bugs and rushing waters. 

And so will I.