Moments Along a River

I stood alongside a murky green river flowing at angles down the watershed.

Birds flitted here and there. No boats. I noticed traces of poison dispensed by the government to kill invasive plants. Total futility. They have to be removed by hand, just like the invasives in the American body politic.

There was once tremendous logging activity around here and it damn well killed the river. Perhaps a century from now, healing will have taken place. One wonders how the American body politic will fare ten, 50, a hundred years from now. We always manage to move forward, except in income equality and warmongering. Why so intransigent in these areas? Can we ever change in this regard?

A breeze ruffled my threadbare Western shirt. I can’t bear to throw it away.

My mind drifted to a special friend who has disappeared on me and I can’t understand why. We have so many great projects to complete.

Geese honked in the distance. They are special birds because you often hear them without seeing them. I like that metaphor a lot for human beings, as long as the honking sounds as soothing.

No one is around while Astoria is under siege. I struggle with my relationship with Astoria. I probably will for the rest of my life.

I saw wood floating past. I conjured an image of someone wearing a faded Rolling Stones t-shirt and and entering a driftwood fort. That someone is out there.

I thought of another special friend who recently called very late at night and delivered a toxic dose of vitriol with a potency heretofore unknown to me. But I listened and remained mostly silent. There is little use in meeting vitriol with vitriol.

The river seemed listless. I felt listless. I was about to spend the next hour in one of the worst places in Oregon. I would witness official vitriol spilling out into a small room and filling it up like a sinking submarine.

Very few of us would survive.