Muddy Boggy Creek

Hiking, not far from Pawhuska, I discovered
an abandoned orchard and paused to listen to MBC,
grasshopper static crackling, frogs in full screech.
One fruitful apple tree bent down to me and asked
if I were a mushroom filled with gloom,
spore on the floor, as I lay in the grass of July.

Thunder Bunny and Atomic Flea had fled south,
Bunny on her Harley and Atom on his soles, strange
little Flea with strides as long as a buzzard’s sweep,
and Bunny with her bright chestnut hair coiled
in a coronal braid, neat.

Bark, returning from his doggy paddle,
flailed all his waggles loose and gave my face
a quick flick of his long pink tongue.
I untangled a burr from his curly hair.

Across the creek a screen door slapped. The scratch
of a broom brushing at weathered boards was
accompanied by the serenade of a tuneless whistle.

The mud beneath Adam’s paws returned
to a puddle of dust rippled by the Kansas wind

in a place not far from Pawhuska.