The River Is Low Tonight
The day has been quiet my wife came home about ten, took the baby out to her mothers and another friend named Dave is coming over and we'll go fishing and I guess trout have mothers too and I am the killer of their children and I believe these fish do have feeling, intelligence. I think about the sudden flash of pain searing down their spine as the sudden hook is set. I think about the cruel play upon their instinct to grab, to savagely attack their prey so that their meal is not lost to the current of the river the cruelty of how they must practically hook them selves or starve; I can see my self cruising fast waters striking fast or loose those rare scraps of proteins. In my life there is no such thing as snack food; every scrap necessity. Trout loves the river, the minute he's brought out he’s already half dead from a broken heart. No hook gives more pain. Swift clear water dancing diffused brass sunlight skipping along mossy stones, tinted pools brown, rose, white, stones, certain rapids waiting out the low water heat of a summer day because it's deep there, cool there, always the heart of the river any bug- worm- fly- meal falling in brought over that spot even in low water days it was cool there, swift, no moss on this bed of rose, white and a million brassy shades of light, no moss on this bed of cool stones that shall now no longer know your particular presence.
The river is low. Tonight is the first night I cannot hear the sound of running water as I lay in bed. Spring. Sleep. Darkness. Through only my dreams the echoing rapid river. Tonight is almost silent only one distant cricket. Perhaps it’s because our house is surrounded now by desolation, even the river is wary. The new owners with their hired out state wards have started off their ownership by cutting down every tree on the land all the trees whether oak or lilac, anything that grows destroyed - squirrels we used to see four at a time now I occasionally see but one across the river. Muskrats home in the rocks on the bank right bellow the bedroom window, now buried with dirt debris, torn, twisted limbs of oak maple lilac quince. The tree the squirrels used to get to the roof of the sun porch and drink from the clogged rain gutters, (being too lazy to trek all the way down for river water) is gone. There will be no more acorns and the squirrels have moved across the river. There will be no more muskrat he is either suffocated in his buried home or else he too has moved on. The chipmunks that used to scatter as if wind blown among the sunny boulders on the bank, they are scattered now forever never to return and the early morning splash of ducks upon the water replaced with buzz saws yells cussing and the ill use of good natured fools.
This winter no squirrel may find emergency acorns in the clogged gutters, no one who lives in this upstairs apartment will get photographs of the grey imp posing right profile, left profile, full front, tail end. And of the annual nest of blackbirds there in the rusty drainpipe sticking out of the back wall of the house, what of them while these people renovate? When the aluminium siding is put up or the walls knocked down, or when the bank is filled in and the last tree cut, when all the shit is done, everything clean, everything neat, new, suburbia , what consideration will be given the ugly spiny black bird chicks? The beautifully brown warrior shy wasps that live in the fence pipe surely they must be burnt out so the fence may be safely ripped down and replaced by stockade maybe red wood fence or maybe black iron spikes or western type rails; something a little more in tune with a renovated modern home something more appropriate than a rusted scrap pipe fence. I suppose that's how to improve property value, you don't need rats or squirrels or ducks or trees or wild flowers, wasps or birds cluttering up the place with their annoyances and I'm sure if they could they'd re route the river so there'd be no bugs or dampness that might damage the structure and attract further vermin. Like all the rest we too are being driven out with no place to go not even across the river for us, soon only the brown velvet mice that run through the walls will remain blissfully ignorant of the awaiting poison.
No job, no place to live, the three of us out right peasants. House full of tensions, dreams, uncertainty, the only joy is in the child, his ever groping ever learning life unfolding petal by petal before our eyes - nothing stops him not walls or stairs, fear or love, nothing stops the child, the ever beautiful constant hope, the child.
I'm sitting in the kitchen at the little table we stole from some bar, the place is too small for a full size table but in spite of the crampness it is home and I hate to leave, it was the first place that came close to feeling like a real home, all our drama, comedy, love making, births, deaths, fights, all - no matter what, was surrounded by a familiar warmth, the so familiar warmth of my family, my home.
I'm sitting here drinking some tea, there's some local mellow sounds station on the radio while outside the summer is in full swing, across the river tall full green trees ruffled and savaged by the wind and the sunlight, the sunlight.... A couple of days ago the rain filled the river to bulging but now already back to hot and sunny the subdued river is almost silent.
Haven't been outside for a while at least not just outside doing what I want, last almost week was spent moving my sister in- laws things. She moved out from living downstairs. She is divorced and has a five year old daughter and well anyway besides moving her seven years of collecting stuffs and one piano there were households of things being stored by friends of hers in the cellar that had to be moved - a regular pain in the ass situation. Now here I am trying to find an apartment and a job to pay for it by the end of the month and it's the twenty seventh and there's no time to relax, no time and I know it's my own fault but maybe something will happen sooner or later something has to come together, meanwhile there is my son and yesterday there were two wood ducks male and female on the river and a friend of mine kept me smiling all day when she told me she was pregnant just made me smile all day and just now I saw a chipmunk after thinking they were driven out forever. These things make me happy; these things make me make it. Last night in my dreams I saw two water snakes in the river red copper brown through shaded water and a squirrel came up the stairs into the living room and ate pretzels with me and we were living in a new house and I could fly.
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