Panning For Gold

            Day after day I pan for gold my own way, staying here the way I hear the others wear their pans down sifting the ground and shifting the water for the sounds of hotter nuggets lifting their brows until something suggests that the day has found nothing of interest, no yellow chest to hold to their chest no gold in its rest or older treasures of a measure too great to sate their unsure fates, while their dismal state declines to abysmal lines drawn in riverbeds, faces withdrawn from unfed wives while I stand silent, kneeled in the clear water.