The Creek

Life

is a gloomy rift glimpsed

in a snow-topped creek;

offering vague impressions

of what came before,

only hinting

at the shape

of what may come after

its edges obscured

by drifts, bedeviled

by years-dead branches

crashed down

at the whim of long-forgotten

summer storms

or perhaps it flows with fluid grace

while drowned rats dance below, their

bloated corpses stuck upon slimy stones

still others feature rough-hewn edges

with reliable, chuckling eddies

tucked amid jagged

sawteeth

each fissure alone

a world unto itself

yet together

they herald

the coming

rebirth