Marvel

I blame it on the English spring
we discovered thanks to a friend
of a friend of their quotable yogi.
Sacred, the teller declared and we
found it tended by fastidious hands
and minds with laughter free-spent—
or so we decided, us four, drunk
on slanted, sloshy moors, the pinching air,
alone with it bubbling forth like any spring
from a hidden, muscly source, this one
with decorated rock framing the giddy
tumble: incense sticks still steaming
in knotty wooden supports, skull
of some tiny antlered creature, rib-
bons leading from rock
to traveling water, friendly flags
(or so we decided)—
stick your fingers in
you told me and raised a pound
to gray sky spanning our secret copse
(you in your Los Feliz retro-eyeglasses,
blue jeans and bomber jacket all visiting).
You said something only you could hear,
dropped the money in the mirthy bubbly,
cupped your hand and scooped and—you drank.
Surely there are many bits
of world to marvel over, surely
some bits yet to be named?
You are the first for me.
Even my, our, friends gazed.
I dipped my fingers. The spring showed:
extrinsic colors merrying. And England
slowed. (Hush now: my spring-child, hidden,
grows.)