Every once in a while, I share something inspired by a prompt from one of my writing groups. Recently, we were challenged to compose a poem using the title of the Wallace Stevens poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Crow,” but inserting a noun other than crow (and writing in our own style). As usual, we were given five or ten minutes to complete the task. I composed a list poem using an image which has been close to my heart from my earliest days. (Sorry, I seem unable to set the poem to single space.)
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Mountain Brook
rushing water splashing over fallen boulders
minnows in shallows, trout in deeper water
salmon jumping upstream
sunbathers wading to a rocky slab
picnickers eating Vienna sausage and saltines midstream
mica-sprinkled sand under still, clear pools
glinting sunbeams
liquid life
sticks floating like tiny kayaks
soggy sneakers
frogs, algae, and water bugs
miniature lacy waterfalls
quiet water flowing over moss-covered stones
Living on the Diagonal 
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It could take a lifetime
To get to know these trees
In the patch of park across from the Zoo rookery
The way one knows one’s family
This towering one infront of you for instance
Its roots like weather-beaten tusks of some
bull elephant
Half way to the top trunk splits in two
Like Siamese twins
Then zigzags into a cavalcade of summer green
Or take that other right behind it The trunk
Split open by lightening or by age
Looks like an open book
Maybe some ancient parchment by Avarroes
Eramus comes upon
400 years after it was written
This third tree is the last
Least I turn into a tree myself
It’s tan and slender as an adolescent
Who’s dancing for the pleasure of the Khan.
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Poem by Paul Carroll, 1927-1996
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Lovely, Maryrose. He really captured it.
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Perfect Poem!
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Thank you, Leslie!
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It’s obvious that you know your subject – mountain brooks. Having traveled in the North Carolina mountains all of my life, I can see all of those imagines.
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Yes, Jan, mountain brooks have always been a favorite of mine since regular childhood trips from the SC flatlands to our grandparents’ home in the NC mountains. We often stopped for a creekside or mid–creek picnic along the way.
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