Moleskin 5.3: Lingering River

  Let me linger for a moment now, back at my sixth home and its place on the Buffalo River: a muddy river, full of the soil of the fields around it; a rising river in the spring, finding its way into our basement from time to time; a meandering river that shapes its own valleys in the shadow of the Red River of the North; a river of gravel road bridges and big mud turtles. My mother had her small job of reading and reporting the river heights at the bridge station just down the hill from our home; my father worked at the church up the hill on the other side of the river, a quarter mile down and up that hill. I swam in the Buffalo River, as muddy as it was, and I explored the woods behind our house that bordered the river and give it riparian solace. I met neighbors and friends my own age all along the river: across from us, the Akers; a mile east and south, the Horpedahls. Spiritually I am still sitting, will always be, along that river, with water that seems to barely move.