Dragonfly The creeks and rivers in the area I live are ugly, brown lazy flowing streams that can go from little rivulets coursing through sandbars to raging torrents of mud in the space of 24 hours. They carry the dirt and clay of more than a thousand miles of water from the foot of the Rockies on the way to the larger rivers, on to the Mississippi and finally, the Gulf of Mexico. A far cry, visibly, from the flint-rock bedded creeks of where I grew up. Three weeks ago, I was on my way to my Grandmother's birthday shin-dig, and upon arriving too early, took a drive down a country road to kill some time. This was an old road, the one used long before asphalt highways, a winding, steep-curved road, through the backwoods. It was once 'the way' to the Old Mission from the satellite mission thirty miles south. I found myself lost in thought, reflecting on my own history with this road, and then back through the generations. I came around a curve and found myself driving alongside Barren Fork Creek. Clear, crystal clear water gliding over flint rock and gravel. I literally had to stop the car and walk over to the bank and just watch.........it was beautiful. A kingfisher was walking through an eddy by the other bank, on spindly legs, hunting. A bass swims up under the bank below me, uncaring of my presence. Dragonfly sweeps past my face. The water is so clear, it's like glass, interrupted only by the reflection of a blue sky overhead in pools where the water has found no current. I pick up a rock and skip it over the water, one.....two......three......four....five,six, seven. The last skip careening off onto the other bank, faster in velocity than when I threw it. When we were kids, we would say that the number of skips the rock took represented the number of girlfriends you would have. Seven. Pretty accurate. I find it hard to pull away, lost in nostalgia, fascination, and appreciation. It has been a long time since I saw water that clear. Which makes me sad. Today, that same creek was featured in an article in the state newspaper. Threatened by the poultry industry as a pollutant, by commercialism for it's tranquility, and by man for it's usefullness. I took this place for granted during my youth, assuming it would always remain the same, nearly forgetting it's beauty, only to return years later, having become used to things a little more murky. Like life itself, things were crystal clear as a child, what was right, what was wrong, who were your friends, who were your enemies, what to hold on to, and what to let go by you. I remembered this while gazing into the water. My hope is that the creek will still be this way when some grandchild of my own will someday sit on the bank and stare into the clear flowing water and marvel that there is still a place like this. A place to see beyond the murkiness of what life has to bring, something pure and unspoiled, skip a rock to the other side, each skip representing a life's lesson. I find it a shame that something I took for granted as a youth, now hits me so squarely in the face for it's beauty, as to have to stop in awe, which makes me sad. The drive home took me west, each stream growing murkier and muddier as I left the plateau of the high country into the plains. Each stream growing murkier and muddier. Each year growing murkier and muddier. It's been a long time since I saw things so clearly. Dragonfly flew past my face. Too many of life's lessons muddied. Seven. It ~was~beautiful. Which makes me sad. |
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"Dragonfly" © wauhilau as posted in
alt.discuss.clubs.public.culture.native-american.benable
on Sat, Jun 17, 2006, 6:00am (EDT-3)
photograph © Kim Baker
Kim Baker's Oklahoma Travel and Nature Photography
"Earth & Sky" midi courtesy of élan michaels bead bar courtesy of Greasy Grass