7:47 a.m.-
A trio of grass
stalks is swaying up out of the current. Rooted along the margin of the stream
bank down in the flow, high water is working them hard, not like the more
secure grasses higher and back further from strong on-the-edge pushes. A working
class family rooted from birth on the edge where certainty is assured of no
rest from affliction. Back where the water is shallow and safe, higher-class
grasses are thick clusters of ease, currents caressing their toes.
Back down in the
flow the three stalks bend. In synch they dip, pulled down, down, nearly all
the way under. The one nearest the stream is burdened by a dead weed, depression
or drink or car payments too high.
Over they go, up
to the neck, a sudden stronger surge leans all three to the chin, then noses,
eyebrows. Trembling, gyrating, fighting the way things are, rising, water
draining, fresh breaths of air. Then a new silent tide too deep to be seen
lug them around and sink them complete. They rise gasping but something has
gone; bankruptcy, perhaps, has removed the big one's dead weight.
8:41-
A fraternity of
overgrown flies has moved in from the east. Hundreds and thousands, a biblical
plague, well maybe fifteen or twenty, but an unruly annoyance all the same.
Eight on the gunwale striding jerky, two on the oars, one on the thermos.
Nine or ten have gotten EZ's jaws snapping, they surprised her while napping.
We got out here
the earliest ever today. The weather channel predicted the first day of summer
and the earliest sunrise of the year and, though often wrong in their forecast
of sun or tornadoes, I believe they got the passing of the solstice right,
which is scheduled to happen, at this longitude, in about five minutes.
The alarm rarely
gets used. At four o'clock this morning I was irritated by coughing and a
phlegmy clearing of throat, then a raspy electric buzzing gave out a warning.
I stood in the dark, gimped by a strange dream, and fumbled a knob I thought
was the snooze.
"Antelope's
the real deal," yelled the TV. "It'll make you young and shed off
that fat, so get out your purse and open the clasp! Dial this number now,
you silly old sow, and prepare to be thin, with smooth and tight skin."
Made coffee and
filled a second Thermos with lemonade and headed through blue sleeping streets
lit softly by gold streetlights and dawn massaging the sky. Intersection stoplights
still blinked their nighttime routine, yellow-yellow for a bunny who hopped
through headed east, and red-red for me who waited while it did.
Past the paper mill,
waiting for workers to arrive. Rumor has tattled that employees have twice
been sent memos threatening a permanent shutdown if they don't perform for
a profit within six months. A few blocks later a police cruiser suddenly appeared
close to the boat with its red and blue lights flashing. Curious why the officer
had chosen to arrest our slow prudent passage--no other motorists were out,
so I was sure EZ and I were his target--I slowed and pulled near the curb,
thinking to bribe him with a top-off from my Thermos. The officer only sped
around and curved out of sight. Responding to a domestic brawl? Perhaps a
stickup at the Mobil Mart out by the crossroads or chickens loose north on
the highway. Topping a rise half-a-mile farther I saw the squad car swaying
over a curb and settling into a spot to monitor and catch speeders along their
morning commute.
We launched just
after five. EZ jumped in and sat on her deck while I parked, then grinned,
"hurry-up" as I trotted back to the dock.
The water level
is two or three inches higher than last time and the current is fast, trying
to keep us from headway. At quarter throttle the land moves half as fast as
we do in the water. Duck daddies and mommies, horribly crippled with wings
dashing and splashing wounded wildly, escort us by zigzagging frenzy away
from the broods of rubber duck-sized yellow-headed fluffs. Inch-long blue
dragonflies are hatched out and nod on seed heads, and muskrats are busy barging
fronds of fresh grass, like frilly Vegas show hats back over their backs.
Clusters of pastel yellow irises shine their own sun before the bright one
comes up.
9:23-
We pulled to a point
where two weeks ago I buried sunflower seeds. Found one tiny sprout, with
one of its two leaves mostly eaten. EZ urped and grunted up a regurgitant
grassy sin.