Forest Pool

Once there was a still forest pool. She gazed up at the sky and said to herself, "Wouldn't it be wonderful to travel with the clouds high above this world?"

So she evaporated into water vapor and became a cloud. The cloud said, "Wouldn't it be stimulating to take form and have a sparkling body, to dance and zing so fast, to glitter in the sunlight on a twig!" So the cloud condensed into a raindrop and she began to fall.

"I'm falling!" she cried. "I will crash on a leaf and splatter! Wouldn't it be lovely to be snow, to be a perfect crystal, light as air, fluttering silently in the breeze!" So the raindrop became a snowflake and gently settled on the mountainside.

The snowflake sighed, "I'm stuck here, frozen in crystal silence. There isn't a green leaf or blue flower anywhere. Wouldn't it be exciting to melt into a mountain stream, and tumble down through alpine meadows!"

So the snowflake melted and dripped down an ice sickle, falling into a cold brook. Soon she was gurgling through a valley, past Cascade lilies, lupine, asters and columbine.

She cried, "Too fast! I'm getting exhausted, I can't catch my breath! Let me stop and rest awhile!" That is how she became a still forest pool, gazing up at the sky.