Launch a canoe, take one paddlestroke, and you're home. In busier months, when wet feet are de rigueur on weekends, my sleep is often broken by dreams that rise to the surface like leaping fish. I wake up gasping for air inside four walls, feeling the tug and sway of a small boat adrift in slow waters. Each spring I wait to see the swamp roses bloom, to hear the wingbeats of dainty warblers flitting through tangled thickets, to inhale the rising fragrance of damp earth. When the rain comes, even the air turns green.
Summer drops a dense haze over matted lily pads and canoes slide quietly under a leafy canopy.
Shorter autumn days bring flashy sunsets that streak across the swamps, setting fire to crimson banks of Virginia willow. Sudden bursts of dying light illuminate the bright crest of a woodpecker, the tawny underbelly of a swooping hawk, the ghostly plumage of transient egrets feeding in the shallows. Winter foliage thins and colors dim to reveal the skeletons of trees, the secret byways of squirrels. In every season I have seen our river dancing with life, but I have also seen the dance cut short. Only we humans can kill that party.