This morning I looked closely at the footprints crossing the river and confirmed what I thought had been the case yesterday. An animal - a deer, I am guessing - had laid down tracks almost at a right angle to the boot marks.
What is it like for you, Ottauquechee River? It is older than human time and will last longer. While godlike in its transcendence, it is also exquisitely vulnerable. The Ottauquechee takes in whatever sky and earth send its way, eternally open. When the rain came two days ago, a drain pipe overhanging the right bank, just downstream from the bridge, poured liquid into the river. I don't use the word "water," because salt and grime darkened the stuff enough so that the narrow flow moving over the ice that day by the right bank appeared grey until it reached the far bend.
Around a few more river bends, the Woodstock sewage treatment plant sends its products into the river. Fertilizer leached from fields adds another ingredient. Whatever rises from the earth in the watershed will get to the river.
Most everything that falls
will reach the river some day.
She has to take it.
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