This is the time in the northeast to get inside the wooded interior and peregrinate the blithesome creek. Before the ticks. Before katydids, or the excitement of hyacinthus. Naturally, the mind brakes the body and idles itself at bends and tiny falls along its length. The watershed penetrates the bone, snow-thawed. The water echoes giddily, euphoric like a kid high on jelly beans. A fine slot to boot.
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How is it more than one Spam can has made its way down to this tucked away bank? Dawn detergent. Ivory soap. Motor oil pails, years rusted and faded to photogenic patina. When? Why? This is nowhere, of any kind, for a rest stop. It’s a fair distance from the road, backwoods, a spot far between possible parking of a car. Who takes the time to heave this dump? Walks this far, with such weight, to this spot? I wonder sometimes if I envy the guiltless, not the ignorant, just the real assholes.
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I walk on. I sit on stumps that seem intentionally cut for the wayward. I cross the creek back and forth a dozen times. It seems only a few years ago I traversed such stones as a kid, in wading boots, knee deep at times, in dark water, for miles. Or was it mere yards? I miss the blur of distance once had during young innocence . . . memory, instead, in the wake. Time is a pale, rough hewn scar. I dig my nails in to pick it back open, starting a new scab. Fresh blood sealing the seams.
(Walking, 4.2.15)
