Netul River Musings

I am sitting on a bench, eating my lunch, watching the slack river, typing this on my trusty AlphaSmart. Across the channel, a bald eagle perches in a black cottonwood tree. The first bumble bee of the season just bumbled by. Canadian geese are honking. Frogs just sent up croaky chorus. Here comes a little drift boat with a puttering motor. A man wearing a brown hoodie is sort of fishing. A log truck rumbles behind me, carrying death from the watersheds. I am thinking of a phone call I received the other day, around midnight, from someone incredibly dear to me. It had been almost two years since we last talked. It was good to hear her voice; there is something in that voice that has always entranced me. Perhaps it’s how she articulates her astonishing vocabulary. I hope to hear more of this voice in the coming months and years and hear it declaim dreams and aspirations. I long to hear freedom in her voice.

This is a good riverine place. No one is around. I could teach a writing workshop here. To one other person. Perhaps that person could be the voice at midnight. I once saw her feed a candy cane to a gull. It was one the most graceful things I’ve ever seen.

I wish I knew the name of some of the waterfowl flying overhead. Sometimes I believe it is good to know the name of a species that confers delight upon me. That is a way of honoring it. We don’t honor nature enough. I have wondered if the current President of the United States has ever had a memorable delightful moment in nature. Golf doesn’t count.

It is time to leave this river and go back to the artificial world.

I love writing outside.

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