Creek

The bed is cement
a flood control channel
keeping the stick houses that crowd the banks safe
except where floods broke the walls
and they brought boulders to fill in
where ever the relentless wet pounding had torn it apart.
But most of the year it's just thin
a meander through accreted silt and sand, tires and junk
as reeds strain to drink the sun
or feed the sturdy and opportunistic egrets and ducks,
gulls and crows, swallows and coots. Each spring wings
and beaks lay claim to another nest
which must be hidden in the warm.

There's no place to drop a line in the water
no overhanging trees to give shade
it's not deep or clean enough to swim
no surprising bends, no flats
an 11 year old can cast in,
and the beaks don't really make much sound.
But they will stalk what little fish scurry, float
the fluff chicks - a tiny, downy fleet -
whose whitening shells still litter.
In a few months the nests will wash away
when whichever caretaker rain god
concludes his pact with Ceres' lineage
and brings down heaven.

It's then the creek remembers
what it's like to pulse and growl
free, for a bit, to muddy the bed
and not just lay silent in a civic collar.