Cool, Clear Water
by Danielle Gallo
T
he San Solomon springs flow
ceaselessly, 25 feet below the
surface of the pool that FDR
built back during the depression. Out
of the alphabet soup meant to sustain
the nation through lean times crawled
the CCC ‘the Civilian Conservation
Corps,’ and they made a swimming
pool to rival the greatest in the world,
4
hewing the stone from local limestone
outcroppings, stamping clay and straw
in the hot Texas sun to make adobe,
fashioning a pool nearly two acres
broad to catch the endless gift of water
from the ground. The water ripples
even in still air, rare pupfish and duck
feet creating tiny whorls and eddies.
Water can never be still in a dynamic
Cenizo
Second Quarter 2017
system: it is a restless mass that seeks its
own level, but never quite finds it, all its
uncountable parts being pulled and
pushed this way and that by unseen
microcosms from the silvered surface
down to the depths.
The Comanche Springs Pupfish,
unique to these springs, are an aberra-
tion, really. Some diversifying event in
the far-distant past either killed off all
their closest relatives or produced them
in solitude, placing them forever in
danger of disappearing. With their old,
wider habitat destroyed by humans, the
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