Today:  One of two Creek Poems.

Along Paddy Creek

Start
at the end
of Wild Hog Holler
where water trickles from a mossy cave.

Follow
as it wanders around rocks.

Smell
sassafras leaves.

Step
over fox bones and abandoned
land snail shells. Freshwater snails
dot rocks as the stream widens–
shallow for minnows;
growing deeper, sunfish.

Rest
beside the Baptizing Hole 
where our grandparents first felt the icy hand of God.
Dark fish steer around the bottom.
Columbine and lizards
grow on the bluff.

Talk
of old Homer, the moonshiner, whose still sits back in the holler
in rusted pieces these days–
the helicopters from Fort Wood
always spotted the steam.

Duck
under pines beside the beaver dam.

Find
the gravel road that follows the creek.

Wade
the concrete ford, green with algae. Crawdads shoot backwards 
into caves in the claybank.

Trudge
at last into the campground
to the 4×4. Cling to the rollbar
over rough logger’s trails.

Ride
to the mouth of the creek,
spring-fed, feeding the Piney.

Watch,
dust-covered and creek-damp,
whirlpools as the waters meet,
then smoothly
join.

~ M.C. Chambers

Text and images from the unpublished manuscript “52 Scribbles”,copyright 2017 by M.C. Chambers. All rights reserved.