CarrollBlog 5.21

Rock Tea

by Gary Gildner

At a hot springs in Sawtooth Mountains

8,000 feet above the level sea,

my two-year-old daughter enters the steamy shallows, and sings

I'm naked! I'm naked! And clings to herself

as if the pink body under her slender arms might slip away.

I do not want her to slip away, not ever,

but I know one day she will. I know

one day she will put on her snow boots

and take up the trail in earnest—and I will call out

I am happy for her, very happy, but sad too,

and h