Halfway

The lake is clouded, an almost luminous turquoise. The bottom feels slick, like soaked wood in winter. For weeks the daytime temperature has been over twenty-five degrees yet the water is freezing, fed from the glacier above. I wade up to my waist, then dive. The...

Success and Succession

The path drops steeply via a series of switchbacks, between granite outcrops and boulders, crossing streams that plummet down the mountain. I hear birds whose calls I don’t recognize, their songs mingling with the drone of traffic far below on the road.  It is hard to...

The Oak and the Swift

Lately I’ve started to pity swifts.  They arrive around Mayday every year, appearing over the river in helter-skelter couples. They then form larger groups and spread out over the valley, chasing invisible entities which must be far more important to them than prey....