The Birchbark Letters

In the afternoon, the sunlight flits through the cold window here by my desk, it’s filtered, shallow light passive in its warmth.  I raise an eyebrow and glance out over the rooftop and see a sky that is cobalt, shell-like.  Winter.

My mind drifts lazily to the South Holston in July, with the sulphurs hatching in the evening as the water rises slowly, released from the dam.  The day was hot, sweltering even, and fog condenses on top of the river creating a mist where you cast blindly to percieved dimples in the surface- evidence of rising trout.

One sips your feathered imposter and your rod surges with life, bowing low, pulsing. It’s a small one, released with a twitch of your hand, twisting the hook out, swimming, gliding underwater back to a rock midstream.  Who cares that it was a small one.  The barn swallows are dipping low, skimming sulphurs and craneflies.  The bats wing crazily over the riffles, fluttering high then low.

The day has let go and the world sighs and the moon rises and the trout continue sipping.  And there is peace and stillness.

So I think about all this as I sit at my desk and I try to figure a way to capture the feeling of it while sitting here.  The closest I can come is to write about it.  Well, daydreaming gets me pretty close too.