finding gold

your knees hurt
from panning gold. from kneeling
in the wet ground
beside the stream.
your hands are cold.
you find enough to get by.
shaking the tray
until a few
golden pebbles glimmer
in the fading light.
your back aches, your vision
is blurry.
it's a hard life.
no one's to blame, perhaps
if you had
never found that one
large stone,
things would have changed.