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Thoughts on the banks of the Chippewa and Red Cedar Rivers
Larry Lynch
July
On the Chippewa, below the footbridge. I don't know that this microworld is delimited exactly--the view goes on to infinity if you look in the right direction, after all. The river separates the two banks but it also unifies as it flows inexorably downstream.
Suddenly I am alarmed. Not by the strange rust-colored seeds that keep appearing on my hands, arms, pants, as though my flesh were trying to reproduce, nor from the white butterfly that wobbles drunkenly in and out of my vision, nor the two biplaned dragonflies with their black and white buzzed cellophane wings, pursuing each other in perfect jet formation. No, it is an ominous thrashing noise on the asphalt path behind me. Now that I have discovered this picturebook locale are they going to cut it all down? The sound passes, then returns going the other way. I stand, cautious, the tall plants hiding my presence. I peer out. An oblivous groundskeeper on a Lilliputian orange vehicle, excurs into the plants by the path, retreats, attacks again, moves on.
Here he comes again! Now I am really concerned. The white butterfly cavorts close, inquires.
He is cutting it down. Dear God, not all of it. Can he not see that these are flowers? A rabbit starts up, a turtle crashes into the river leaving a crocodile wake, a huge blue-winged insect scurries out of the tall grass on foot and breaks into flight.
Surely he will stop when he has cleared the edge of the path. He wouldn't venture down on the quartz and granite stones forming my domain. The ferny plant that has moved up to sit by my side nods at me in the breeze, its sharp shadow making arabesques on a smooth gray volcanic rock.
Across the river shiny carsides glint the noontime rays off the water in flashes. Downstream other rays catch the white froth of a miniature falls on the far side emptying onto a rapids.
The Chippewa flows endlessly on, black where the university buildings hunch quietly to port, silver under the cumulous clouds drifting, drifting, drifting downwind. And the river flows ever on, going God knows where or why.
He's gone. I inspect the damage. He has driven back the threatening stalks, leaving four feet of backyard and two feet of flattened wreckage. Ah, well, he is only paid to inflict token retribution, issue a mild citation.
Most of the orange berries and the red berries and the pink and purple flowers and the grape vines, the daylilies, and the young aspen survived. The other plants and animals peek out, see that it is safe, and venture forth once more.
| Proprietor: Larry Lynch, lorenxo@canyonfire.org Updated: 19 October 2001 |