A creek flows through me,
Down my arms & right
Out my muddy, wet
Fingertips…
Pulsing warm as blood,
Like the memory of song.
I proclaim my firm premise:
Every child, at some point in youth,
Should befriend or be
Befriended by
A creek.
My own former playmate
Still runs in Kansas; shallow,
Stoney & slow…
It curved playfully
Behind the pink-sided rental
Where we lived when I was but
5 years old.
It was there that I first studied
Aquaculture with diligent
Intensity & full
Wonder.
Learning habitats
Of crawdads, turtles & snails;
Observing lifecycles
Of frogs & toads
…from egg to tadpole
To gone…
The creek was alive.
Moss green covered stones
Sprinkled with small freshwater shellfish,
Stirred by outstretched strider bugs
& darting dragonflies.
Brilliant sun flashed
Backs from countless minnows,
Brushed bare toes, half sunk
In rich, slimy mud.
The creek called to me daily,
& I could not resist.
This creek,
Which once curved
My childhood afternoons,
Still remains in my
Bloodstream.
Now, my own daughters
Need a creek to live
Inside them
As friend & teacher
& a venue for few innocent
Crimes,
Offering
Them permission to explore
A world I can no longer
Easy enter,
& time to experience
Innocence which I can now
Scarcely envision.
They need a creek:
Flowing through their minds,
Down their arms & right
Out their muddy, wet
Fingertips.
~ Elizabeth Perdomo
Elizabeth Perdomo has lived and written in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas these past fourteen years, moving to the region from the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. Born in Kansas, and raised both there and in Colorado, she has written poetry works since a young teen. Perdomo also lived in the Southeastern USA for a number of years. Her written pieces reflects on local place and culture, ecology and nature, traditions, spirituality and much more.
Thomas Reynolds is an associate English professor at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, and has published poems in various print and online journals, including New Delta Review, Alabama Literary Review, Aethlon-The Journal of Sport Literature, Sport Literate, The MacGuffin, Flint Hills Review, and Prairie Poetry. Woodley Press of Washburn University published his poetry collection Ghost Town Almanac in 2008. His chapbook The Kansas Hermit Poems was published in 2013. His work has received two Pushcart Prize nominations.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 
I enjoyed this poem. It took me back to the days when my friends and I played in what we called the alkali creek that ran at the back of our elementary school playground. It ran red with the runoff from the lead mines. Our moms told us not to play in it, but of course, we ignored them. It was such a temptation for us.
I really enjoyed being led back in time to a place along the creek of my childhood. I can still feel being there, engrossed in all the fascinating life to explore with such an open mind. Well written poem, Elizabeth!