The Crick

Give me a taste of the Crick today,

     Up where it is dark and still.

Up where the bass and pick’rel lay

Where the sun peeps through in a selfish way,

Where the sunbeams dance when the branches sway,

     Close under the towering hill.

Give me a boat with an idle oar,

     And a fish-pole light and strong;

With a friendly thrush on the nearby shore,

And a lucent sky where the fish hawks soar.

And I would venture for nothing more,

     But for the whole day long!

My heart goes out to the Crick today,

     It is cool and clear and calm;

The throb of the town lies far away,

The mink and the muskrats swim and play,

While the river sweeps in a friendly way

     The banks of my old home farm.

Give me a taste of the Crick I miss.

     A song of the nimble reel;

Where stream meets stream with a joyous kiss,

Where song-birds tell of a boyhood bliss –

O a hearth that’s dead to a scene like this

     Is a heart of the hardest steel.

Oct. 4, ‘99