Coursing Across the Land

sometimes the water is allowed to flow across the land, the dry land. it flows around bleached boulders, over stones in a stream-bed broken with winter thirst. most of the land can only watch with envy from bluff tops, the low benches with crumbling sides left high and dry decades ago. whispers of water pass along the root telegraph, shared by the breeze passing leaf to leaf, or perhaps through the cheerful chatter of warblers, vireos, flycatchers and others of the local feathered residents. those plants that grow up above the stream can only wait, listening to the gossip, watching the sky, thirsting for rain.

down below, though, where the water courses across the land, tumbling, rushing, pooling, reflecting the open sky and shimmering silver waves, the plants refreshed and green timidly reach down to touch a mirror surface, fingertips scratching a 'v' on the glass as it moves downstream. mostly this stream is little more than ankle deep, but here and there it gathers in deeper settled, slumber. in the sun, algae forms across the surface, a mottled gangrenous cover hiding, perhaps, an army of frogs (as a group of them is called). but in other places, places where the overhanging branches of sumac and rhus cast a cooling shade across the suddenly dark surface we might, almost, imagine fish lurking, darting from shadow to shadow. of course, there are no fish; this stream only flows when it is allowed to, and most of the year we can only imagine what it looks as it does now.

this past weekend, on an abnormally warm day I took a short ride Out There, out into the wash. it was a short ride not for lack of time, but for lack of... well, ride. i spent more time off the bike walking, than i did on the bike riding. always in search of new things, new places to "find" out there, i have long been intrigued with the idea of following up this particular stream-bed when the tap is turned on. moments before i had stood atop a bluff looking down on a gently curving ribbon of water where, moments before that, two riders had stood looking down at me trying to find a way through surprisingly thick growing brush. i knew this stream would take me to and then through one of the the gates of mordor, upon which guardian knights were painted who knows how many years ago and, though i had looked down from above many times before, i had never bothered to explore the course as it slices along below the bluff. no matter how much you think you have seen of a place, there is always more. keep exploring.