Reflections in the Marsh

Rowing a small dinghy on a warm day in late November I am circled by the seagulls above.

The Mirrored Marsh 

I look down to look up and somewhere in the shadows of the reeds the line between sky and earth is hidden.

I have the marsh to myself, I have the work of my oars to myself, I have the squeak of the leather against the bronze oar locks to myself, and the sound of the small splash the wood makes as it pushes the water and the world away from us.

I am building an affinity with the marsh and the river so that I might build a wooden boat for use on the  marsh and river.

The distance I can row is not so great, but the world I am discovering by slowing down, by resting upon the looms and noticing the shore, the sky, the water's surface, my boat upon it, seems much larger than is possible.  It is looking into a microscope and discovering communities of life.  It is opening a book and discovering characters you never knew you knew.

The light signal at Stony Point.

I started in boats to be able to travel far and wide.  The river that runs to the sea and becomes the ocean, the oceans of the world, and then touches the rivers that cut thru interesting and beautiful lands and are born from tall mountains.
I am finding in boats that I live in interesting and beautiful lands with wooded, rocky shores, tall cliffs that drop straight into the water, fecund smelling marsh where animals hide from the Bald Eagles that show up late in autumn.

Barge approaches the narrows of Stony Point.

A tug pushes it's burden up the river against the falling tide.  I find a twelve foot long piece of lumber, in useful condition and I tie it up with the my line and with the tide helping me along, pull it down stream.

On the shore a deer watches me as I watch him.  A stone house sits on the point.  In the summer the leaves hide it, but now, with the leaves all gone it looks even lonelier with it's windows all shuttered.

I imagine being in that little house, with a fire place blazing and still feeling the cold walls of stone as the winter lays down a blanket of snow on the ground and on the floes of ice as they pop and crackle and move down river on a cold February night.  Even so, I dream of being able to live on that point of rock with only a foot path to service it and not even a decent landing for a boat on it's rocky edges.  

I would do it, I would take on that responsibility to maintain and keep that little stone house that watches over the Hudson and is never quite warm.  I would fashion a small landing for a boat, a small float that I could pull up above the tide line in the winter, lest it be crushed and carried away by the winter ice.  In the winter what a great and hellishly cold little place to be.  In the Spring, what a great and hopeful little place to be.  But in the summer what a great and magical little place to be.    In the Fall what a great and slightly sad little place to be.

I want to row to the shore and tie up my boat and go up to the house and find a way in and move the shutters and let in the low Fall light.  I want to gather downed limbs and twigs and light the fireplace.  I want to move a chair close to the fire and fall asleep as the cold November night falls.  I want to make the house lived in and see if it responds and becomes a home.

But I row on.  The tide gives a nice push so I can drift.  The water is so smooth and slick that I loose the horizon as the the swell that the barge gives off, long and smooth rolling waves, rise up to the sky and my view of the river becomes a fun house mirror, all curvy and bending and strange.

Double sun.

The Suns on my left side are getting low in the sky and their warmth is dwindling.  It is time to pull to shore and take my little boat from the river.
During the winter I can think back on my little row or I can just come back down to the river.