Photographs, Return Creek

by Jim Ott


Spring 1974
Here water flows from rain
from snows packed alongside
granite, beneath lodgepole pines
water sometimes placid
here
cascading
past rushes whose roots drink amply
from this creek.

Here we fished at dawn.
At noon you swam
and I read Sherlock Holmes
glancing up
from darkened London rooms
to bright azure silence, squinting
and to meadows young
with possibilities.


Summer 1977
Here I watched your cousin
weave a fragile braid of wildflowers.
Your uncle stitched
the bleeding brow of his wife.
We fished Return Creek
casting hopeful lines
clear and strong as sutures
pulling trout from
vigorous waters
flowing
from Sierra snows
to distant rivers, unseen.