Walk 11 – Falls of the Ohio

“Now move at least a little out of my sun.”

My attention fell upon the small plants. Solitary. Or maybe huddled in a copse.

Striving for life. Reaching. Daring. Not clinging. There is no “barely” here.

They reverberate with life. LIFE. They quake with life.

They have made it. The solitary tree. All over the Falls.

Water running, a tiny stream with eddies and currents and flow. Insects hop and hover over the water. Do they see the mighty river nearby? Who knows. They do not care. Here, they have enough.

Water running. Not caring about my presence, a tiny reenactment of ancient drama – I the quizzical Alexander, the satisfied water Diogenes commanding:

“Now move at least a little out of my sun.”

I see jagged geometry in the jagged geography. Chipped, sanded, blasted, eroded, beaten into this beautiful inland seascape.

The shells. The shells. The shells. Fractalized fossilized flinders.

Patterns. Patterns. Patterns.

I have not stepped foot on these rocks for 30 years. They didn’t seem to mind my absence. They didn’t seem to know. That's not right. They knew; they perceived. They did not notice.

A thousand of my generations – ten thousand – a hundred thousand – shall live and perish. My pattern shall repeat and repeat and repeat.

And the Falls of the Ohio shall not heed.