Some might think rivers (constantly washing
as they do all day and night) are cleaner than trees,
the way trees are always dropping their seeds and shells,
the dead parts of themselves to the ground, creating
a roughage all around in plain sight.
But rivers are somewhat bland, rarely possessing
a distinct color of their own, primarily reflecting
the tints and shades of others. In summer they look
like the summer skies at noon above them, later
assuming the fiery, scarlet-russets of evening
as if believing all along they were the times
and skies themselves. Yet rivers, unlike trees,
multiply the beauties around them, reflecting
and doubling the blossoms of sweet flag, hempweed,
indigobush, mimosa blooming along their shores
and borders, at night transforming the one full moon
into thousands of itself riding on wavering ripples.
One doesn’t often hear a tree calling in the distance.
Although once, in a windy hardwood forest, I thought
I heard “oak” slowly being sung in the deepest, fullest,
bass voices rising up from the earth to surround me,
and a whistling soprano “suuuumac” coming
from the open foothills, accompanied by a whispering
“ceeceecedar” in the background for rhythm. (My blind
friend told me that he’d heard these trees long before
I heard them. I do trust my blind friend.)
In contrast, rivers are nearly always easy to hear,
rowdy, roaring and racing without pause, rising up,
crashing over boulders, slamming down the other side,
slapping and slopping the shore. Rivers can rage
against their banks, shaking trembling tents
beneath trembling trees during midnight lightning,
thunder and relentless rain.
Yet these same rivers flowing slowly, repeat over
and over the same comforting phrases of the ancient
lullabies everyone knows. Rivers are often saviors
declaring clearly and definitively to anyone wandering
lost in the forest, “follow me, follow.”
During sub-zero winters, however, rivers and trees both
are almost totally silent, except for sounding an explosive
crack, a sudden and painful breaking of ice or branch,
echoing through the frigid forest, near and far away.
Because they swim and feed in rivers, most water
turtles, cooters, musks, don’t like trees so much, unless
a large poplar has fallen into the river and become
a perfect sunning bed. But birds, nearly all of them,
love trees, even tom turkeys. I wonder whether geese,
swans, and ducks might love rivers and the lakes
they create better than trees. Maybe most birds,
overall, love the sky even more than they love
either rivers or trees.
Rivers and trees seem equally self-confident,
forging their own paths through life, establishing trails
over the earth or spreading in patterns across the sky.
A kind of predestination…they both seem to know
from the beginning where it is they must go.
And lo, they go that way until the end.
I did a bunch of reading and computer work on Tuesday morning, then had an acai bowl for lunch and we walked to the park. It was another gorgeous day just under 60 degrees, a few ducks on the beach, a pair of eagles in one of the trees. When I came back, I got online for my DS9 group, but Vicki couldn't come at all, Shalini could only stay for half an hour, and Carol couldn't arrive until more than half an hour had passed, so Meredith and I chatted the whole time, plus we invited Deborah to come catch up with us, which was delightful. We weren't up to a great episode anyway.
