Big Elk Creek
Posted: May 9th, 2020, 10:06 am
woodsy soil like dark Belgian chocolate
you can taste the air if you wag your tongue a little,
marsh plants dwarf under skyscraper oaks, and I
am a tiny traveling scribe with a backpack and a stick
goslings swim with mom and dad
a black and white dog chases a yellow tennis ball
tossed in the water, in the creek by the old mill's ruins,
thousands have worked and played on fair hill
I plunge my walking stick
into the same ground as settlers drove fence posts
and dug root cellars
under the same sun and shine of the moon
and maybe a little moonshine
was distilled with the fresh water
of the Big Elk Creek
that floated rafts and birch canoes
and maybe the folks sat around their fires
sipping that liquor thankfully
for all the bounty set down
on long maple tables fashioned with calloused hands
you can taste the air if you wag your tongue a little,
marsh plants dwarf under skyscraper oaks, and I
am a tiny traveling scribe with a backpack and a stick
goslings swim with mom and dad
a black and white dog chases a yellow tennis ball
tossed in the water, in the creek by the old mill's ruins,
thousands have worked and played on fair hill
I plunge my walking stick
into the same ground as settlers drove fence posts
and dug root cellars
under the same sun and shine of the moon
and maybe a little moonshine
was distilled with the fresh water
of the Big Elk Creek
that floated rafts and birch canoes
and maybe the folks sat around their fires
sipping that liquor thankfully
for all the bounty set down
on long maple tables fashioned with calloused hands