<red-orange autumn leaves on the water, surface tension around the edge, some leaves on the bottom.....>
yes, they form glistening carpets on the water, especially where the river moves slowly... they look metallic.... gold, copper, brass, bronze.... like some flat metal sculpture of little leaf shapes soldered together, with beads of mercury scattered across the top. But this sculpture moves, undulating in the wake of my canoe.
Bright copper leaves on the dark shale of the river bottom are sometimes startling. A leaf will glow like some kind of other-worldly thing that someone put there to make you laugh. They are "trick leaves" that look as though they're only an arm's length below the surface... beckoning you to try to pick them up... soaking you to the shoulder if you try because they are more than a paddle length below you...
I would like to see the tourmaline waters at Mt. Rainier. Water is fascinating... some might think of it as generic... the water in a glass, but when you paddle in it, it is always changing, never the same twice. The light, the wind, the temperature, the algae and many other substances forge it into a constantly varying life form. And the water has a temper, sometimes happy and cooperative, but sometimes cold and unforgiving. It can change suddenly. A cloud passes over the sun and suddenly the warm, sunny waters change as dark, icy weed tendrils become wrapped 'round your paddle blade. Some primal fear strikes you for a moment... maybe makes you shiver. Submerged trees can be eerie when they are covered with long flowing mosses that move with the current like a kelpie's mane.
Air is alive too. There is a kind of golden-emerald air that exists in the spring in the forest here at the farm. The air is a brilliant golden green under the green ash trees where the fern fronds rise up from the damp earth. The air tastes golden.... |
