Looking for Gold by William Stafford

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A flavor like wild honey begins

when you cross the river. On a sandbar

sunlight stretches out its limbs, or is it

a sycamore, so brazen, so clean and bold?

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You forget about gold. You stare and a flavor

is rising all the time from the trees.

Back from the river, over by a thick

forest, you feel the tide of wild honey

flooding your plans, flooding the hours

til they waver forward looking back.

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They can't return: that river divides more than

two sides of your life. the only way

is farther, breathing that country, becoming

wise in it's flavor, a native of the sun.