Down the Crick

This house had not seen a baby
in such a long time. Through the hot
moony nights the sounds of birds &
floorboards amid the succulent squawks,
squeaks, midnight milk-beckonings.
During the day mama carried her through
the stunned garden, in a bonnet & one
of my grandmother's old napkins like a skirt.
The baby sanctified everything: leaf-filled
fishpond, gate made from cupboard doors,
Heavenly Hots cooked in the morning.
While she napped her papa took a rusty pan
from the cellar & as if he'd been here
his whole life left for the creek. Slipping
his hands down into the cold holes
underneath the stones, where other men
had been before but not for a long time.
He came back with ruined boots ("Didja
find gold, honey?") & a pan full of water,
so that he could show us the movement
of the finest grit, ambulations of iron filings
settling according to their weight. There!
he says, & points to a scintilla of a scintilla,
one gilt mote, which we can hardly see
but persuade him to eat for breakfast.