Even When We Can't See It

I’ve been feeling a bit more quiet these days. I think some of it is from all the waiting we’re in the midst of, and working through the potential purchase of a bookstore. But I also grow quieter online when I’m feeling the need to immerse myself in fiction writing, and that’s what I’ve been doing recently. I have to finish this novel that’s been kicking my butt for the last few years.

So I may be a bit quieter here, for a bit. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Here’s something a little different for today.

---

There is a river right
behind our house. Actually,
I say “right behind our house,” but it is
at the very bottom of the hill. You must walk
through the sycamores and oaks
and maple, where deer hide,
and keep going through the power line
clearing where shoulder-
high weeds will grow, past the small grove
of magical misplaced bamboo, and even
as far as the footpath. That is
where the river is, the river
behind our house.

We walk there, you and me, on quiet
Sundays when the blues have set in,
when dusk clings to the trees,
in the winter, spring, and fall. We slide
our way down the steep banks, holding
on to small saplings or one another, stones
tumbling down ahead of us. At the bottom,
on the path, we talk
about these days, what they’re
bringing us, what they mean.

Winnie runs on ahead, chasing squirrels up
the hill and the receding white tails
of deer and ducks that scurry back
into the water. There is
the distant sound of a woodpecker.
We stop and listen.

To reach the river in summer
we must walk the long way round, through
the neighborhood, down the hill, along the
skinny path, and past the no-trespassing signs,
because in the summer
the nettles grow tall as a boy and the thorns
hang heavy in the in-between spaces. We
cannot even see the river from our house
on those hot summer days, so thick
is the undergrowth
and the canopy
and everything else.

Today I split the last of the firewood
we’ll need for now. I cleaned the ax
and put it away. Spring is here
and the rains and the gentle warming.
I said goodbye to the river, which we won’t see
again from the back deck until
November. These are the seasons of our life,
when some things come alive
and others disappear, when the river
keeps running even
though we can’t see it.