A River Walk.

I went down by the river for a walk. I haven't been down that way since the day the boy and I were halted by signs announcing a sewage spill. I'm not sure why I haven't been that way since. Why I stopped walking regularly. I remember twisted ankles and the heat, perhaps it was those. I need to remind myself that it's truly something I enjoy. Today I was feeling antsy, though, and decided I needed a diversion that didn't involve pantry diving.

The walk by the river brings out poet in me. The start is a fairly steep drop into an encompassing green. I startled a squirrel straight away. It scurried up a huge maple. The path winds closer to the river and gradually climbs next to the municipal pool, empty on a cool late spring afternoon. Just a lone lifeguard watching the empty water and 2 children poking at the water while working hard to stay dry.

From there the path slopes down again. The sound of the water takes over. There are bachelor buttons and a fine daisy type weed lining the path. I startle a rabbit and wish that I had brought a camera. I pass a fisherman not so very hard at work at a deep pool by the banks. The river is loud here, passing over several dead falls. A mallard moves swiftly downstream with the current.

The air is thick and moist and the puddles and swampy places make me wonder if I will regret that I did not use any bug spray. Soon the sound of the highway grows as the path passes under the bridge. It doesn't take long, however, for the sound of the cars to fade among the water and sounds of bugs. I hear the music to my right from a house or the restaurants up the bank, I can't tell which.

Approaching the place I was last turned back, I can see the work they've done. There is new paving here, and the grass is not quite fully regrown. I approach some apartments and smell someone's dinner cooking. There are several children on the playground. One's mother approaches calling to her in Spanish. By the old mill site a couple approach with a stroller. I don't see a child, but as I pass he toddles behind pushing his conveyance. On the path the dragonflies sit like tiny black twigs, scattering as I pass. The seem hard pressed to decide which way to fly as I flush them over and over until they pass behind me.

At the footbridge I pause and lean over to watch the stream pass. My back aches slightly and the stop lets me both admire the water and stretch a bit. Down a bit, there's a tunnel of grape vines. I wonder if it will cover the path like an arbor come the summer. On the riverside a sudden movement reveals a bevy of cabbage white's sipping the nectar from subtle blooms of fuzzy pink.

The end is closer than I remember. No benches to mark it, just a path that stops at a wall of underbrush. I'm tempted by the path worn in the weeds down to the river, but not today when it is so cool and damp.

The return trip seems faster, the bridge and the lot by where the old mill stood. The play ground now hosts the family. Mom climbing the 'rock wall' and sliding down, Dad pushing the child on the swings. I muse on the trees, old men growing twisted with time. I think again that I should bring a camera with me to capture their personalities.

Three children approach on two bikes, swooping up from behind me and disappearing at a turn in the path. I can see where new rocks line the riverbank and part of the railing has torn away lying twisted below.

The children approach again coming at me from under the highway. Madison Avenue couldn't have picked them better: black, white and Hispanic riding full tilt and laughing. I feel a sense of joy and contentment watching them speed toward me. Then the blonde whispers "lose some weight" as they pass, and the spell is broken.