Flat Creek in Texas, photograph by Carolyn Tourney Florek

Over Flat Creek Near Round Top, Texas

​      While the earth breaks the soft horizon
      eastward we study how to deserve
      what has already been given us.
 
                              from “Love in the Country” by Wm. Stafford
 
There is something about a creek or small stream
with its slow, reflective water,
pebble- or mud-bottomed
which holds the sky and turtle as one.
 
Where duck weed grows into a floating carpet,
it is impossible for us to touch the water.
The steep bank is so tangled with wild rose and fallen trees
it would be foolish to try.
 
It’s hot, the air still and almost silent except
for the vireo we know by its song. 
 
I love these places seemingly of no significance
where the dirt road crosses over Flat Creek.
 
The vireo scrambles the air in its declaration of home.
The water is lazy. A turtle parts the green surface
and swims into the sky. 

(published in Texas Poetry Calendar 2014, Dos Gatos Press)