Fish

Between the upper and lower falls at the Graveyard Fields, I saw a rock-colored fish. After our hike along the gentle trail, Mary and I were squatting by a pool created by some boulders damming the water flow down the mountain. She wanted to stick her feet in it before beginning the trek back, easing her swollen ankles.

Behind us, the white water rushes down the almost-vertical rock face: which turns horizontally; upon which we now sit; which continues beyond and below us, with a ribbon of a brook through the middle. On either side, the still-young green of late spring masks branches and rocks and birds and all manner of things unknowable in these woods.
But here, on the broad river of stone between the verdant, wooden shores, there is only Fish.

Twice he jumped to try to eat an insect hovering above the surface. The winged creature flew on. Betrayed, again, by his fins, his scales, his water-breathing. I crossed my legs and watched the Fish. How had he chosen this tiny pool? Had he come over the falls? Could a fish survive such a battering, this side of the frying pan? For how long has he been in this pool? For how long can a pool so small sustain him -- can he grow there? Will he squeeze past the boulders and tempt fate by going down the rest of the mountain? If he depends on catching insects to survive, he won't last much longer...

We had walked the path, cut through the middle of rhodedendron forests, where the monotony of wood and leaf is shattered by silent bursts of color. We passed through fields that the 1925 forest fire had cleared, and over the crooked fingers of the stream we were following. Before we saw it, we heard it: the waterfall. First there were the lower falls, beautiful but small, pouring down the naked mountain. Stepping across the broadly-diverted water -- mere trickles across so much even, down-sloping, soil-less space -- we continued upward, until the upper falls were in view. I know that the mountain laurel always sees it. It does not take the maple tree's breath away. When it rains and there is more water, the fern is not impressed by the sight. But I made a rock sculpture. An ebenezer, said Mary. And we truly enjoyed it. And we just WERE. I just WAS. I just am. ...be...


Mary's baby is swimming like a small, but growing, Fish in his own personal pool.

The rock-colored Fish has sunny speckles on his sides. He lives in, and breathes, pure light rippled by water. He moves slowly, precisely, through the cold water collecting above the Fish-colored rock.