The Creek

We wade knee-deep through the slow and muddy waters of
The Creek, that trivial sliver trickling down the street
from where our mothers raised us. Towering cottonwoods,
bearing the carved initials of a neighborhood, bend over
damp banks to shade our heads from July’s hard heat,
and to cool The Creek. A decade gone. A Rubicon both flooded
and dried. We carry on carried, jeans still rolled to pale thighs,
always uplifted by the generosity of the cottonwood trees.