The trail leads into
the marsh from the edge of the parking lot transitioning first from pavement to
hard packed gravel and then to well worn dirt. A short distance from the
asphalt a tunnel of sorts is created around the path by stands of old
growth trees, scrub brush and vines. As with any path, there are two
certainties: something lies behind and something lies ahead. What happens in between is
up to the wayfarer.
Light begins to
change as day eases into night. The dim coolness of the tunnel is periodically
broken by the last bits of the evening sun and its heat weaving through the
breeze stirred canopy overhead. The sounds, smells and feel conjure memories of sunsets
on dirt roads, the old International Harvester with half a tank of gas, the Shakespeare
with a Zebco on it thrown in the back with a box of Mepps Spinners and half a
dozen streams with brookies in them to stop at…and “Jack and Diane” on the
radio. The summer of ’83, the last time that all things seemed possible.
Off the beaten path
and through the grass is the edge of the creek. Along its length as it reaches
out to the river proper are a random series of swallows and ditches. The water
floods the sod banks and begins to fill the space between the stalks of cord
grass and salt hay, transforming the marsh into a different place that exists
for a short time every twelve hours and twenty four minutes.
In the distance is
the hum of engines and tires on the pavement departed just minutes ago. The sounds
of the daily journey between what is and what can be, between making a living
and making a life. Looking down into the water a reflection stares back, eyes
lock, each face familiar to the other.
Both mouth the words to an old Tom Petty song:
“Sometime later, getting the
words wrong
Wasting the meaning, and losing
the rhyme…”
Each silently asks
the other, “Do you remember?”
The two part ways as
life begins to flow with the water from the creek and its fingers over the bank
and into the grass. A depression on the marsh floor next to a wide ditch is now
filled with water, its glassy surface intermittently disturbed by dancing
shrimp and baitfish. Casts are made from a somewhat raised area off to the side in the hopes a
striped bass or a shad ventures out of the ditch into this temporary buffet
line. In time a wake appears and on the second cast to it the fly is hit almost
immediately.
During the release of
the shad, in the light of the headlamp, the reflection reappears and asks again, “Do
you remember?”
Both watch the fish
swim away.
The water’s edge is the
border, the difference between one who does and one who does not. Standing here
right now, caught in the middle, each step deeper into the marsh another step
away from one and closer to the other.
North River, MA
Summer of '15
North River, MA
Summer of '15
