This morning I walk along Bass Creek to the Rock River as I’ve done a thousand times with my Black Dog, Shady. Two weeks have passed which in rivertime, in springtime, is two months. Nothing is the same. I notice the swallows have arrived. They decorate the dead river maples. Otherwise, flocks have molted into pairs. Two shy mergansers skirt the creek bank. At the confluence a goose sits in a dead tree scolding his spouse. She talks back, not having his sass.
Out in the field a pair of sandhills starts a courtship, but they’re shy around me. He flips a twig and half-hearts a leap. All the loveship makes me miss my companion. This was a mistake. You can’t walk an animal without the animal. Still, I meander. The river is bankfull. The proper container for a river is its bed. Until in spring the river says, I’m too big for you now. And it rises. What is the proper container for a feeling? Where do you put it, I mean, and where does it stay?
All river walks are out and back. The trail deadends at a house where no one lives. You could make this walk a thousand times and never see a soul.
I go back the way I came. So I have to pass the dumb goose again. He’s still in his tree. But I understand now he’s hollering at me, not his wife. And she too berates me. Now it settles in. I’m what’s wrong with this picture. I’m interrupting. A lone bird in spring is an odd bird indeed. The geese keep scolding. You don’t belong here, they say. Get out of here, they say. And finally, I listen.
I'm Chris Fink, and that's my perspective.
