vernal pool

scattered across the pink batholith monadnock,
weather pits sprout Texas bluestem, live oak,
miniature soil islands independent ecologies
all of their own – 425 feet above ground
opening out over the Llano Uplift,
we scale Enchanted Rock on New Year’s Day
to get to highest ground,
six months since our last move
and still strangers to Texas Hill Country,
I inspect a water-filled depression
remembering the tide pools of Mora Beach,
when you point out the one-inch invertebrates
swimming upside down just under the surface,
the fabled fairy shrimp
whose eggs survive even in drought,
to be revived in salt water or when rain returns
to the granite shelter, evidence of animal
existence on a barren rock,
adapting to a new habitat over millenia,
we descend the dome to feast w/ friends
a supper of black-eyed peas