Resting on my belly upon the cool soft grass reminded me that winter was past. I looked down over the bank at the swollen river. Small logs and debris bobbed and ducked under the currents. Trunks of willow and olive trees along the shore were knee-deep in swirling ripples. Over-hanging yellow-green buds brushed the landscape as in a still-life painting by a master artist. Sun peeked through the branches and penetrated the water illuminating frenzied minnows.
A fence along the property separated the alfalfa field from the thirst-quenched shore. Just enough warm wind followed the month-long rains to partially dry up the water-soaked lawn. Weightless, I rolled onto my back and gazed into nothingness where the synchronistic universe mystically brought the landscape and waterscape one into the other. I closed my eyes to enjoy the tranquillity of it all, then opened them to be stimulated by the breathtaking transition of the morning shadows with their undefined boundaries.
I sat upright absorbing the warmth and the myriad shades of distant blues and greens. I could see that the rustic dock isolated itself, floating on its barrels, a little out from shore. Its bleached deck was inaccessible to the patter of tiny sandals, but a comfort came over me with the thought of floods eventually subsiding and summer taking over. The heavy iron bench where I generally sat to write had submerged days earlier and could no longer be seen. However, I knew it was there in the murky depths, its feet buried and trying to survive a drowning in the muddy grave. The seat of it and the back slats under water created an unnatural maze where curious fish rushed through in schools. The bench’s iron frame and strong arms and legs scorned the forceful current for they could do nothing to free themselves from it. I lamented that when my bench could finally breathe the dry heat of Kamloops’ summer, it would be too spent and rotten to recover much less to ever appear inviting enough for me to sit again and conjure stories.
A pair of clunky Canada Geese alighted on the soppy deck and preened briefly. As they lifted off to continue their flight upstream, honking broke the silence then faded out. The morning cloud formations gave pause for my imagination to soar with ideas to write about in terms of recent signs of spring on the North and South Thompson Rivers. As I stood to leave, an accumulation of woody mangled twigs elbowed through the encircling currents where the rise of water sloshed against shore. The sight caused my mental and emotional state to mesh with the artistry of Mother Nature; for, my own spiritual nature felt whole and one with creation.
Idling, my head fluid as the river, the little cliché ‘spring has sprung’ left a wide smile on my face. With sun still glinting, the old bench still suffocating, the geese orchestrating from afar and the curtain of willows barely parting, I studied the lofty heights of sky against the lowly, soggy earthen-bank.
From my grassy plateau, I heard the invisible wind soughing in the boughs. There was completion in the rushing of it. And, in the new season, there was certainty in the flow of life. In a moment of stillness and introspection, a quiet voice within which I recognized to be the voice of the supernatural Sculptor, whispered this truth, “Everything here is touched by my hand. Such, is spring!”
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