Everything felt alive by the
water, even in winter. Maybe it
was the rippling creek singing prairie songs as it passed. I heard about a field mouse cleaning
his whiskers, branded cows standing shin-deep two miles upstream, and,
somewhere down the way, someone was going to hear about two monkeys trailing
branches in the current.
Sing us well.
We walked. Ridges in the
bark seemed deeper, carved runes in a language we only barely understood. Understood it better as the trees reached
to brush us as we passed. I did
the same, running fingertips over cottonwood Braille, reading their stories.
Once upon a time, began the tallest, I bathed in the sun and riversong,
smallest sapling by the creek. Past
him a thin elm told of spider webs glistening in the morning dew, tied to every
limb on every tree and swaying in the breeze. I read about generations of squirrels and meadowlarks, the
coyote curled up in a bed of dry leaves, about black snakes slithering in from
the surrounding wheat fields, and thunderstorms lighting the night.
Up where the trail splits, an old cottonwood fell years back, tumbling
headfirst into the murky splash of the creek. I paced the fallen tree, and words took shape. They floated like bubbles from a
plastic wand, into the treetops, bursting at the touch of a limb, and raining
to the ground.
In the distance two cardinals called back and forth. They were joined by the rustle of
leaves, wind in the highest branches. The laughing creek arrived like a distant harmony, threading its way
through the score. Sounds swirled
together.
In the tips of trees I could see leaves swaying. The unseen touch struck a message in my
blood. I turned, saw my fellow
monkey throw a pebble in the water. I knew he felt it. I knew
that somewhere inside something had busted wide open, and just because another
name hung from his lips, didn’t mean that we weren’t both at the feet of the
same God.
The sun fell, color fading in the dusk.
Near the creek, he rose.