The Friday after Thanksgiving was a beautiful day, warm in the sun, leaves piled up, trees mostly bare. I walked down to the creek to sit for a while. It had been several months since I'd done that. There was sun on the rock by the creek. I brushed the dry leaves off and they floated down over the little waterfall. There's a shimmer on the creekside rocks from sun reflecting off the rippled water, and the musty scent of autumn.
Downstream, there's a gravel bar where robins are flying in to drink and bathe. Sunlit droplets fly as the birds shake in the water, bringing a smile to my face, a joyous little bit of grace. A breeze riffles through the leaves and feels cool on my face and ankles.
The water flows. It has been months since I sat here, watching the water flow by, and the water has been there, as it will be the next time I go.
Crows caw high up in the bare poplar branches. Most leaves are down, but there are still some - green, golden, and russet, along with the ever green needles of some tall pines. I toss a leaf in the water and watch it float down, over the little falls, into the foam below. Little rafts of bubbles float by. As bubbles pop, the raft reforms, closing the space, growing smaller. If two rafts get close enough, they seem to attract each other and then touch and merge, rearranging into a circular shape.
Clouds drift in, hiding the sun. The spinning Earth, like the flowing water, in constant motion. Because I'm spinning with the Earth, the Sun appears to move across the sky. After awhile, the sun reappears, farther west and lower down, and the shimmer on the rocks reappears.
I drift off a little. When I wake it is the burble of the falls and the call of a bird that center in my attention. Many people are out today, walking, running, playing at the playground. I feel the coolness of the boulder I'm sitting on. It's time to move on.
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