The river may run away with us, but we wade into the shallowest water and
watch a boy climb the bluff on the other side:
Let go, a call from the water, and he drops into the deep center of the
mountain stream where we will spend two nights sleeping on sandstone glade
in the rain. We can’t put down roots here—
But you will learn to fly fish for largemouth, bluegill, sunfish, brook trout, and
throw them back into their second chance
And you take between finger and thumb waxy, blue berries of Eastern Red
Cedar growing there next to our tent
Where we lay on your grandmother’s quilts, folded in half and layered one on
top of the other, and cup hot hands in gloved palms while we sleep
After I read to you the article in Taproot about what happened to the
landscape of the Pacific Northwest when we still hunted beavers as pests and
how we’re reintroducing them, hoping dry creek beds will re-saturate if we
make amends—you fall asleep before I reach the second page, but I read all
five aloud
Before pulling on secondhand duck boots and your dad’s rain jacket to return
to the fire where I swap out dry wool socks with wet, so they hang over the
flame
At the morning goodbye before you drive east and I north, there is sun on our
faces and things we hadn’t noticed in the rain: little bluestem, tickseed,
churchmouse threeawn’s plum forks and splits, growing in shallow soil.
