Not Sailors, Not in this Lifetime
Not Sailors, Not in this Lifetime
Canal, where water changes more than sky— liquid spindles of path and lesion, nose to foot to river. A raft doubles the body and follows a subtle freeway. Another word for terraforming is man kind leeching the pastures of England each and every yard. Still, we built along water for commerce or companion, finding babble another word for home. Now, the forecast held constant is a prophecy. Whittled the tongue and mind into a blunt instrument, gashed a name in eternity using only light and its mistresses: the moon, squinting. You pushed off into the cove, startling the seals, blanketing the water with froth, heron glancing up as sea passed their knees. This pirate summer. A paradise in a hundred waters. Your lips, the color.
This week my family is on vacation in one of the many coves of Puget Sound, a place rich in seal, heron, crustacean, eagle and otter. In summer, these strange places are somewhere between a paradise and a bog, changing their name multiple times a day—indebted to the fickle tide. Each day the tide fluctuates by ~16 feet, meaning that at high tide the water in the cove licks the green underbelly of fern and willow and at low tide (-3.5ft!) there is no water in sight and all becomes an untraversable muck… with that vulnerable sea bottom spotted in sea life. On the first day, we took out the kayaks and nearly got stranded… whoops! Somehow the seals know when to flee their dock. We’re learning from them.
While not a river, this remarkable water body brings to mind the recent Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane. A few of the lines that continue to stick with me:
“River's song is the song of songs, sung in spirals and stars and roars and other notes beyond hearing...”
“In English there is no verb "to river". But what could be more of a verb than a river?”
He also says that the best definition of the term river is “a gathering that seeks the sea.” Honestly, a viable definition for this family vacation… and my mind the last year (plus).
I have an exciting announcement coming the week after July 4th. Stay tuned.
With Gratitude,