To be Impressive Only to Algae

The most difficult part about happiness is it requires us to be venerable I said to myself looking at you dancing in the rock bed of a creek

In that moment I felt like some kind of marine mammal who look at all the earth And choose to leave it for the water

I stepped in barefoot with my jeans rolled up to my knee like you did

But the wet soles of my feet gave way to the small crashes of water and the tiny rocks on the ground I slipped on my back with the water just high enough to cover my nose

Almost like a baptism the clarity of the real world was shifted into the unfocus of mud And then brought back into perspective again as I came up for air

You were a beauty that was overstimulating like looking directly into the sun

I hoped to be some kind of powerful or incredible sight like a manta ray or a blue whale But instead I was a freshwater crawfish

No matter how giant or miraculous I was to the plant matter floating below the surface I could not be more hideous when revealed in the full light of open air

I’ll never forget what happened next, how you looked at me, how you stared

As if the green water colored from algae were the black sands of a volcanic island And the stains on my shirt and jeans where the sight of a palm tree and a fishing spot When you crossed the water and eventually saw through the illusion to me

Kissed my lips like a prized Rainbow Trout and held me to share in beauty of mud"