Elk River Reveries Day Five
Fire pareidolia is the current conversation. Smoking skulls and charred logs. Add or subtract some wood but just keep it blazing. It mustn't go out for at least two more days.
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Elk River Reveries Day Three
The fire pit hisses in the scattered rain. Dark drops crash against uprooted spruce, As I take respite in the fire away from the frantic talk. An Afghan Whigs album on the turntable struggles To rise above the bustle and hiss. The river beckons. I must hover.
The Elk's Mighty Pull
Time once again emerges the winner in its perennial battle to change our hearts and minds, ravaging (perhaps, that's too harsh a word) along parameters that stretch from our youth to our deaths. What are these you ask? Only the old man himself knows and he's not telling. Winter fades to spring on the Elk River and the flood waters recede, streaming rivulets of mud and murk. I pack again for the cabin trip, like every summer since my summers began, excited, except for those few years in high school, when I fled from my parents, a high-minded but foolish youth, escaping into books and records, with friends. We surreptitiously visited the cabin on weekday nights, beers in hand, talk in mind. I pack and pack some more -- the right records, the right books, the right attitude -- looking forward to seeing the Elk overrun its bed or settle back into its groove, and anticipating the smell of the forest, the plants, the early summer. I make my annual lists and call around...