Recent heavy rains caused my creek to rise, and when it fell it left behind a hubcap and a rusty muffler. If we stand on the bank long enough, perhaps the creek will cough up the rest of the car.
In the seven years we've lived with this creek, it has brought us many gifts but few of any worth: a battered bathtub, a rusted barrel, lengths of tattered rubber hose, a deflated raft, shards of glass and clay pots, a child's car seat, twisted fenceposts and antenna wire and a stand for a basketball hoop. Once the creek brought us a chunk of coal weighing more than 60 pounds, and sometimes it brings silt for our garden and gravel for our driveway--not nearly enough, though, to replace the gravel the creek took away in our first big flood.
The creek brings other things, of course, enriching our lives with intangible gifts: the soothing chatter of water rushing over rocks, the beauty of fall leaves reflected on the water, the lacy patterns at the edge of winter ice. This week we've seen wood ducks paddling in the creek, perhaps just passing through but still an encouraging sight. The creek attracts herons and deer, frogs, fishes, and birds; the sight of a kingfisher swooping along its surface is enough to make my heart sing. The creek nourishes the columbines and dutchman's breeches that grow along its banks and feeds the stately sycamores that mark its course.
Will it ever bring me a car? Probably not, but even when it insists on washing away gravel and tossing up rusty mufflers, a creek like mine is a good friend to have around.
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