Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Padden Creek

After Sarah Butler

1. Padden Creek was once unnamed.

2. Padden Creek is alive.

3. Padden Creek longs for the sea,
negotiates without end with the sea.

4. Padden Creek shouts
in falls and short rapids, speaks
in narrow muscular channels, whispers
in shallows and wide bends,
doesn’t care if it is understood or not.

5. Padden Creek is buried and silenced
for a stretch of a few city blocks.

6. Padden Creek is beautiful and damaged.

7. Padden Creek flows to its estuary and the sea,
knows fir and cedar, fur and scale and wing.

8. Padden Creek carries the weight of memory.

9. Padden Creek remembers salmon
and dreams of the return of salmon.

10. Padden Creek will live on — again unnamed —
and will always carry the memory of us
in all we did and all we didn’t do.

~*~

Andrew Shattuck McBride
NaPoWriMo 2014 ~ Day 30

~*~

Sarah Butler is the author of the novel Ten Things I Learnt About Love (2013). She lives in Manchester, United Kingdom. (‘Learnt” is an English usage.)

Sarah Butler begins each of her chapters with a list of ten things. These lists are like list poems or list stories. I think she is brilliant!

So, Ten Things I Learnt About Love is the next book I’ll read.

How is your reading inspiring your writing?

Cheers, Andy