Saturday
Morning
Saturday morning Teddy Redmane
skids into my side yard
on his Schwinn Cruiser.
In his knapsack American cheese on white
with yellow mustard
and Tasty Kake peach pies.
I tie off the cuff of my dungarees
so it won’t catch in the chain
and swing my leg over
like my bike is a pony.
We ride to Helfrich Springs today
to look for snakes and frogs
and trout in the waving current of Cedar Creek.
We pass row houses on Franklin Street,
take the dirt road under the big maples,
coast in the quiet shade,
then without a word, come to a halt.
Above, a red tail studies the clearing,
head turns slowly.
He releases and glides into the thicket below.
The road drops quickly now,
and we keep brakes pinched.
At the bottom, with bikes laid into underbrush
we climb out onto the flat rock
that overhangs the creek.
And there they are. Half a dozen speckled brook trout
holding on the slow edge of the flow.
They suck mayflies from the surface.
The creek carries the occasional moth,
rice paper wings stuck to the water,
thread-thin legs point to heaven.
We watch clouds shift shape,
strip and slip into the rushing stream.
And then the snake.
A fat brown water snake, long as a ball bat,
head held aloft,
swims like a side winder.
We toss a few pebbles to speed it along.
Dried by clean air and sunshine, we pull on shorts and sneaks,
hike a worn path among mosses and acorn crowns.
This bit of forest is familiar
with natural benches and hidden huts,
sanctuaries of spiders with webs strong as mending thread,
colonies of red ants.
A kingfisher lights on a maple branch, silver minnow in her beak.
In late afternoon we resurrect bikes and push them uphill
to level ground and ride home,
tired and satisfied
as we will ever be.
John Ziegler
John
Ziegler is a poet and painter living in a small mountain town in Northern
Arizona.