Where The Creek Used To Run by Ivan Donn Carswell
In ash-fine silt that spread like sand after the flood and before the wild weeds claimed the old stream bed; before thistle phalanxes sprang from the dying mud to invest hollows between abandoned river stones; in affluent heat of an endless summer of immature dreams; in a valley redolent with green and khaki hills we engendered our magical room where the creek used to run. The gnarled trunk of a sad, yellow willow slowly dying, its roots denied relief in the stony ground, stood guard beside the crumbling bank where we played, watched in staid silence, a sentry whose sense of duty was pungent quiet. And under the insistent sun we quarrelled, collaborated and dug rebellious rocks, shifted silt with tonka toys, emulating the perfect world we lived in. © I.D. Carswell
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