For all ~ Gary Snyder

Ah to be alive on a mid-September morn

fording a stream barefoot, pants rolled up, 

holding boots, pack on, sunshine

ice in the shallows, northern rockies.

Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters

stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes

cold nose dripping, singing inside

creek music, heart music, smell of sun on gravel

I pledge allegiance.

 I pledge allegiance to the soil of Turtle Island,

and to the beings who thereon dwell

one ecosystem

in diversity

under the sun

with joyful interpenetration 

for all.

Blanding's Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) Spring Bluff Nature Preserve, Lake County, IL