We are halted on the path
where a small amphibious mite
has sprung headlong into an unknown world,
its river home now out of sight.
Fingernail-size it shrinks on the path,
absorbing the colours of the gravelled ground
and somehow surviving
the rigours of walkers and riders around.
Its freedom now moves it from riverbank hollows
to find the instinctive role that it follows.
Cradled in cupped hands it is carried to water
but I explain its life lies elsewhere.
These precious moments shared with my daughter
are but part of the time which may see it grow
and spawn in the seasons yet to come,
while we witness a cycle that’s just begun.