Boulders on the bank where I could rest
and wiggle my toes in wet sand.
Light and dark, sun and shadow.
I needed a ripple to tell me stories,
how it must have felt to have
a child skip a rock across its shimmer.
Today I needed the creek.
A wisp of breeze through trees on the bank.
Its kiss on the hairs of my skin. The bend
in the arms of each branch reaching
over the water as if to hold another’s hand.
The way I once held a child’s hand
as we stepped across on wobbly stones.
Today I needed the creek
to remember that. And these three mallards
gliding in, stirring things up enough to bring me
back. I needed the current flowing down
as it always does, its course set. And yet,
these droplets on to new meanderings, new rocks
and trees, new adventures on new banks.
Today I needed to be the creek.
