Flux
Mar 12 2010


You can live a lifetime here
and nothing much ever changes.
The lake, the river, the woods.

Yes, there are trees snapped by heavy snow
lightning strikes, and blow-downs.
The old familiar path
slowly eroding
— exposed roots, entangling me
like gnarled arthritic fingers,
boot-sucking patches of mud.
And ancient rocks
turned-up by frost and thaw.

There are the seasons, of course.
I notice, mostly, because they come all of a sudden —
first snow,
the day all the leaves seemed to turn,
when the buds, all at once, unfurled
and the world turned green.

But this week, the river changed as I watched.
It went from abstract sculpture
to installation art —
from milky ice
as smooth and flowing
as the wind and water that made it,
to performance —
a sound and motion show.
Then the ice turned clear
and broke.

It will rise,
run a brown furious torrent
sweep fallen trees downstream.
Or toss them into knots,
caught
where it eddies and curves.
And then return
to what it was last summer,
running clear and cool
so still, it almost stops.

Everything in constant flux
never quite the same.
Yet, in my short lifetime here
nothing much really changes.