A Creek Baptismal

[New Version]

How should I address you—

Duck Creek, as the map reads?

Or is there an older name,

vowelless, a drone down under

your ten thousand tongues

of water and stone? What am I

but a whift of windbone in clothes?

Tongue-tied, rootless, I drift

along your gravel and sand

in my canvas shoes.

Master. Novice. Over. Under.

Depths of water and air.

Your name, my name. A single

unbroken breath.

[Original Version]

How should I address you?

Flint Creek, as the map reads?

Or is there an older word,

vowelless, a drone down under

your ten thousand tongues

of water and stone?

You talk to yourself

as if I’m not here.

To you I’m a whift

of windbone in clothes.

Tongue-tied, set loose,

I tramp down the hill.

Rootless, anonymous,

I press a new name

on your banks

with my boots.