There’s a small river not far from here . I’ve spent so many days in her company that she feels like family. Due to her small size, modern man has found no excuse to squeeze her between levies or slow her down with concrete dams. Nor has he found it necessary to straighten or alter her course. Because of this she has been able to draw her own meandering path through the county side, seeming to have no destination in mind when she drew it and in no hurry to get there.
She flows along through rich fertile soil in some places and between high rocky bluffs in others, a long continuous chain of slow calm pools and glittering, laughing riffles, repeating this pattern countless times. Giant sycamores, and ancient oaks stand like sentinels all along her course. She’s a small river, as rivers go, not much over eight or ten feet deep in her deepest holes. If you have a decent arm you can throw a rock from one bank to the other anywhere along her length. There are some places that she is less than twenty feet wide. Many of the riffles are so shallow that you have to get out and pull your canoe. But with rivers at least, size really doesn’t matter.
In the predawn light my canoe sits almost motionless in the slight current. My paddle, still dry, lies at my feet. I had pushed off the rocky shore a few minutes earlier, hopping aboard as I did so, and have sat here since, quietly listening to the night sounds, waiting for the morning sun to lift the veil that conceals the world around me. I pour myself a cup of steaming coffee from the thermos, savoring the aroma and grateful for the heat from the cup that warms my hands.
Far off two owls are having a predawn discussion. I offer them my best imitation but they aren’t impressed and they carry on their own private conversation without me. I sip the coffee slowly as I watch and listen to the world around me come to life. The slight morning chill in the air has vanished by the time my cup is empty and I know that soon what remains of it within these old bones will leave when I take up the paddle. By now the sun is beginning to clear the distant hills and I do indeed pick up my paddle and begin my journey.
The woods around me have become a symphony of bird songs as they greet the new day with what I choose to interpret this morning as nothing short of joy. Flashes of yellow, blue, and red draw my attention to the tree tops where warblers, buntings, tanagers and countless others begin their busy day. Towhees and thrushes are already busy scratching out a living in the underbrush while in the distance a flock of crows harass an owl whose only desire is to get some sleep after a long night of hunting. Far back up the river I can faintly hear a flock of geese as they head out to some distant field in search of breakfast. A big gobbler up on the ridge is strutting his stuff and telling all the hens in hearing that he’s the one.
I watch the swirls that follow my paddle as I pull against the river and the canoe slips through the water with a whisper. I pause in mid stroke and listen intently to better hear the pure, sweet notes of a high flying flock of snow geese making there way north to a faraway place that I know I will never see. The sound speaks to me of lonely lands and wilderness and I feel something tug at my heart that I’m unable to put into words. I watch as sparkling drops of water fall from my paddle making small concentric circles on the surface of the quiet pool and even these speak to me . I am only awakened from my distant thoughts when an indignant kingfisher flys upriver chattering his noisy complaint because I have dared to invade his fishing hole. I apologize for the intrusion and take up my paddling again.
On my right I see that half the root system of a big black oak is exposed and hanging out over the water. The river has been slowly carving out the soil at it’s base since the first green shoot began it’s climb into the sky fifty some years ago. The work is almost finished. And still the old giant clings to the bank with quiet determination and I wonder if it knows that it’s fate is sealed. The next flood, or the one after that, will put it in the river. But a few yards away an acorn that fell from the old tree lies half buried in the moist fertile soil. Life has already begun inside the shell and will soon send forth a new green shoot and begin it's own climb into the sky.
As I paddle on , a new sound reaches my ears. An ancient boulder lies midstream where it came to rest centuries ago after countless cycles of freezing and thawing had pried it from it’s mother's arms and sent it tumbling and crashing down the side of the ridge and into the river. As the river pushes against the ageless old rock, slowly smoothing and polishing it’s surface, it gurgles and murmurs and splashes,but whether in protest or delight is not for me to know.
The boulder has provided a calm place behind it for the sand, silt and gravel carried by the river to settle out, creating what has, over time, grown into a long narrow island. This island has effectively split the little river into two separate narrow chutes that run side by side for about a hundred yards like twin sisters in a foot race, before reuniting at the end of the island. Almost without help from me the canoe slips to the far side of the big boulder and the canoe jumps forward as the quickening current gives it a helping hand. The faster water here sends me quickly down the narrow chute and gently spills my canoe into the quiet water where the sisters again calm the water with their warm embrace.
I round the next bend and find myself in the shadow of a tall limestone bluff that towers over me like the wall of a giant fortress. I feel insignificant and small beside it and somehow I find that comforting. Up on a high ledge I spot a small cave opening and think, just for a moment, of pulling into the bank and climbing up to investigate. But I quickly regain my senses and remember that I’m no longer that young man that used to make a game of scaling tall rock walls such as this. Taking a last wistful look at the cave opening I steer my canoe on down the river.
Up ahead my eyes are drawn to a slight movement on the bank. I stop paddling and let the slow current take me closer for a better look. As I get nearer I see a small dark animal making it's way slowly along the rivers edge. A mink! It slips into and out of the water effortlessly as it probes every nook and cranny along the shoreline for crayfish,frogs or whatever else it might chance upon. I make no noise and the light breeze carries my scent away from it, but somehow it senses me and in a split second it is gone and doesn't allow me another look but I am grateful for the short glimpse that I was given. Like most of the truly rare gifts the river has given me over the years, this one has come completely unexpected.
As I round the next bend I startle a doe and her two fawns that have come to the river for a morning drink. They whirl around and disappear into the woods almost before I’ve seen them. As I drift on past the spot where I saw them, the doe stamps her foot and snorts nervously from her hiding place back in the trees. I smile to myself and assure her that she has nothing to fear from me. And I know that she and her fawns will have their drink by the time I’m around the next bend.
Each new pool offers up new gifts. In this one, three turtles, probably sliders, line up on a log, soaking up the morning sun and I watch them plop into the water one after the other before I’m close enough for a positive ID. Now and then harmless water snakes leave small wakes as they swim silently across the river. A two foot gar cruises just below the surface watching for a careless minnow or hapless grasshopper. A pair of wood ducks surprise me as they flush from the foliage of a fallen sycamore, a recent victim of the last flood. I spot a well worn path, strewn with willow leaves and branches, leading out of the water and up over the bank. I notice that the path is wet and in my mind I can picture, just beyond my view, a beaver, water still dripping from his silky fur, tending his private willow thicket.
And so the day goes and I am rewarded over and over again with little glimpses into the natural world. Each glimpse evoking feelings that speak to me in powerful and mysterious ways that I struggle here to share with others. Maybe it doesn't even matter that I'm unable to find the right words. I know that for myself the words really don't matter because the meaning is in the feelings themselves not in the feeble words I might use to describe them. I think that maybe each of us understands it and draws meaning from it in our own personal way. Maybe all that matters is that the rivers and mountains and forests and all wild places are timeless and that we have all been blessed to be witness to any of it.
And then, far to soon I round a bend and there sits my old pickup where I dropped it off long before daylight this morning . I load up the canoe, pour the last of my coffee, and unwrap my last sandwich as I sit on the tailgate watching the sun give way to the night. I slowly finish the sandwich, swallow the last sip of coffee and just as I slide into the cab, an owl hoots from across the river, trying to tell me something and I notice I am smiling, because I think I understand.