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Creek Bed Meditations #24

Is it so simple as to be if we touch
the world the world can no longer
exist in the same way? I have
to really think to remember

we have a natural history as well.
The East light can be a tide,
but what will it take with it?
We return to a fragment every day.

Spit out those cherry seeds.
Your hesitation, in all things,
allows the world to catch up to you,
allows growth where before there

was only your tongue. It’s all rubbed raw.
This could be a memorable interval.
The fall has already happened.
Can you figure out a way back up?

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Darren C. Demaree is the author of twenty-five full-length poetry collections, most recently Got There: Poems on Vanishing (April Gloaming Publishing, April 2026).  He is the recipient of a Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal.  He is currently working in the Columbus Metropolitan Library system.