Short Creek Valley Poem by Barry Middleton

I've often said that I grew up
in a boyhood's perfect paradise
and here's a little bit of evidence.
If paradise has a water source,
Short Creek is a worthy one
with water clear as a summer breeze
after rain, potable, in the upper valley.
I often thought when I was young
that Short Creek was an ironic name,
my expeditions ran deep into the hills
but never reached the source.
Short Creek was long in life's lessons
and longer yet in memories.
In age we all say things shrink.
The childhood farm is no longer huge,
the creek was truly not so long,
though still I would not call it short
for it was formidable.
Perhaps that was the first lesson,
living in a confusing world
so soon to be a shrinking village -
the world is full of contradiction.

I fished Short Creek
from its mouth at the muddy Yazoo
and well into the hills.
Catfish lurked there and alligator gar,
sunfish, bass, soft-shell and green turtles
and wayward wood duck strays
that overflew the nearby Horseshoe Lake.
It was easy to imagine then
the native ancestry of the land -
the Cherokee and Choctaw,
the ancient Yazoo tribesman
standing in a dugout made of cypress
as he polled his way
across the flat land delta strip
before the hills turned bayou to rapids.
Then, abundant deer, bear and turkey
roamed the land.
In hills above the valley,
the Indians made their camps
and shards and arrow heads
were turned behind our plows
and taught that treasure,
that life itself,
comes from the earth
and that man returns to it.
That was the second lesson.

The third lesson was about wonder
and joy and faith in intuition.
The creek was a playground
in my childhood time:
a place for skipping rocks,
a place to camp, to swim,
to split a first beer with a buddy,
a place of muddy banks
to form a water slide,
a diving platform for the fool hardy,
sand beaches that rival Cancun,
a place to spy on skinny dippers
and find what girls were all about,
a holy balm to consecrate a friendship.
Yes, Short Creek was a playground
but also a place of higher learning:
a place to explore the crux of living,
to wonder and to find
what was,
what is,
and what was yet to be.