Drowning Creek by Ada Limón

Drowning Creek

 

Past the strip malls and the power plants,

out of the holler, past Gun Bottom Road

and Brassfield and before Red Lick Creek,

there’s a stream called Drowning Creek where

I saw the prettiest bird I’d seen all year,

the Belted Kingfisher, crested in its Aegean

blue plumage perched not on a high nag

but on a transmission wire, eyeing the creek

for crayfish, tadpoles, and minnows. We were

driving fast back home and already our minds

were pulled taut like a high black wire latched

to a utility pole. I wanted to stop, stop the car

to take a closer look at the solitary stocky water

bird with its blue crown and its blue chest

and its uncommonness. But already we were

a blur and miles beyond the flying fisher

by the time I had realized what I’d witnessed.

People were nothing to that bird, hovering over

the creek. I was nothing to that bird that wasn’t

concerned with history’s bloody battles or why

this creek was called Drowning Creek, a name

I love though it gives me shivers, because

it sounds like an order, a place where one

goes to drown. The bird doesn’t call the creek

that name. The bird doesn’t call it anything.

I’m almost certain, though I am certain

of nothing. There is a solitude in this world

I cannot pierce. I would die for it.