Marianne Lyon has been a music teacher for 39 years. After teaching in Hong Kong she returned to the Napa Valley and has been published in various literary magazines and reviews. She spends time each year teaching in Nicaragua. She is a member of the California Writers Club and Healdsburg Literary Guild. She is an Adjunct Professor at Touro University in Vallejo, California.

Crick or Creek

You say— tomorrow you’ll begin
to cascade into life
you say—tomorrow you’ll spill
down thawing mountain ridge
cutting your course through hard earth
nonsense
say— today

Choose to be a crick
not dainty creek—
they glide like a ballerina
perspiring under a tutu
cricks dive into frigid
won’t surrender to icy shiver
freewheel over jagged rocks
boulders tango with
their muscular limbs

Choose to be a crick
not pristine creek—
they meander
write a verse
then pause to rest
near glistening pool
cricks thrash under old bridges
ready for a vulgar fight
rusted cars, discarded barn doors
in the way of wild titanic flow

Choose to be a crick
not soothing creek—
they sing repetitive melodies like
drones from meditation tapes
hear boisterous music
thrumming inside your crick mind—
baroque melodies cannon out
ruckus violins slap mossy banks
roughhouse the young trees
just learning about their sap

you say—maybe tomorrow
I say—take an earsplitting summersault today