Cane Creek

Take me to the creek side where persimmons

grow, where the juice of plums and muscadines

streak children’s  dirty faces like war paint.

We danced the rain dance, called on freezing snow

and bade thunder and lightning to go, while

huddled in our woodland huts, hidden from

an angry God beating his wayward wife,

or moving furniture;  we did not know.

Those long ago summers were forever

with an end. Did we hear the keening trees

cry in sorrow over a child’s lost dreams?

As children do, they grow and drift away

forgetting huts and magical games they

built in utter faith along the winding creek.

But, I remember and I am starved

for the peace that only the wild gods know,

charging barefoot and naked through untamed

undergrowth, saving little girls lost in the wilderness.