We wade within Buffalo Creek -
water's warm in late August,
under the High Street Bridge.
History is there, built in 1926 -
the bottles there are older, we know.
Torrential rains pour every year -
then and, later, we hope now.
As the water crests, hearts pound -
the bottles will dance down stream.
Coca-Cola, RC, Hires, -
six-ounce,10-ounce, thick glass
containers lodge themselves in mud.
We seek, and we peer. We tramp
and we bend. We focus and find,
pieces of the past, tossed out of
cars, off of trestles, into the Buffalo.
I hold one today, wondering where it
once was – Metz, Hundred, Littleton?
We tote our treasures, lug them over
the creekside – count our new stash -
my boy and me, friends of the Buffalo.
Marc G. Auber
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/buffalo-creek-west-virginia/
