municipally known from a grievance, failing to qualify as urgent, a culvert’s outlet scours our hillside hardpan. exposed soil sprouts stuck plastic bottle—cloudy halfway out, decades down, label gone. today we spear the site with willow—a nuisance to uproot in our nineties. earlier efforts: dams of downed trees, mounds of saw grass, doubling bromeliads—only nudged the runoff this way or that, still bent on gully making. now we’ve got the drinkers on it, colonists—swelling full of hardiness and utility.