No one likes to wade
knee deep in the creek
to pull out plastic
snags from the places
turtles seek the sun.
I pretend I do
to do the hard work
that needs to be done.
I take what I have
of magic, of what
I found of pleasure,
in cleaning the creek.
I remember why
I hate what mud can
do to weigh plastic,
to make the load twist
and shudder and shift.
My feet find new paths
in the sucking mud,
some purchases on stone,
that lead to the bank.
My slow slogs resets
stream’s rushing free flow.
I remember nights
I couldn’t fall asleep
on a mountain train
how it like the creek
would twist, turn, and shift
along the river.
I got off the train
and it moved again.
More smoothly or so,
it seemed as distance
grew and the river
ran in parallel.
I knew then, as here,
that joy comes when work
and journeys are done.
—
Paul Jones’ poems landed on the moon in February 2024. His books are Something Wonderful (2021) and Something Necessary (2024), both from Redhawk Press. Recent poems appear in Hudson Review, Salvation South, Southern Poetry Review, New Verse Review, and in Best American Erotic Poems (1800-Present). Jones was inducted into the NC State Computer Science Hall of Fame in 2021. smalljones.com
