Summertime Pool

On the other side of the road is a path, right next to the guardrail, that leads down to the stream. The sky is matte gray and sleet pebbles the black asphalt white as I carefully make my way over icy stones to the burbling water below.

A few falls chatter upstream, but all of them lead to this deep green pool. A white rock pokes its head above the surface, its bulk disappearing into the green murk, and I stand in the quiet, listening to the sleet dust the trees and imagining kids jumping off this rock to splash in this pool, in a summertime that seems forever away.