© 2009 Brian Davidson/Uncharted Staff

The canoes

are Coleman brand;

we’re floating

down the river

in coolers.

Swallows

build

condos

of mud

underneath

the bridge

shadowed by the Utah

       Argonath:

grey barn

and cottonwoods.

At the dock

we sign forms

promising not to sue

if we drown.

Drowning isn’t my worry

though I tend to fall

out of boats

so much my

wife                                                                 boards last,

exits first, saying,

“No sense in both of us getting wet.”

I worry because

          I’m

wearing steel-toed

boots

     not the clogs

I brought.                             

They’re heavy.

I’m likely

         to sink,

but perhaps I

can

    walk to shore

if the river is shallow enough.

But there are birds

to be seen, Alan says.

I believe him,

his Sith Lord

powers

protect him

from Idaho drivers.

He has no reason to fib.

There are birds:

red-shouldered blackbirds

who cling to the rushes

on the banks

chittering,

staring at us as we paddle

past the rushes

like the rushes

Moses hid in

on the Nile.

Further, a sandhill crane

clad in grey, shrugs

its shoulders

flaps

its cloak.

Rushes

as if it were a wizard

hoping not to be seen.

Flies low

to keep the rushes

and cattails

between us.

Glides silent.

The barn owls too

are silent, perch

in the bare tree on the bank, content

to let the meadowlarks

speak for the marsh

as we, the interlopers,

float in the green coolers with our chests puffed red or yellow

            with life-preservers like deranged

                        attention-crazed birds

                                    hoping to attract a mate.

We paddle down the lazy river

wrapped around farms

ponds

steep banks clotted

with crabgrass

piles of driftwood

bleached as bones

tangled with lengths

of orange twine.

Further from humanity

Canada geese

bob

when the canoes round the bend

papa honks, flaps,

walks like a prophet on the water

drawing the floating coolers filled with humans

away,

away,

away,

as mama calls the goslings

yellow and brown fuzz

like the cattails in which

they hide.

The coolers come closer

and the goslings

dart underwater

leaving cartoon Vs of motion

on the surface

they swim upstream

surface.

Cooler!

Back under the water, swim.

Surface.

We’re pacing them

not on purpose;

we’re not paddling;

the goslings are so close

we don’t want to strike them with an errant paddle.

Papa Goose leaves the water

flies a lazy circle

to land on the water

behind us.

Finally the goslings swim

against the current

and the interloping

driftwood

coolers

with the scary

paddles

go on

away,

away.

We in the coolers gaze

at the snow on the backs

of the Wasatch front

looking at the streaks

of white

on the

mountain’s

shanks

makes it hard

to tell

what is the season.

Then a flock flies

in a V overhead.

Geese, I say,

but the svelte bodies

and long necks

say they are not geese

and there is no honking.

Clark’s grebes, I learn later,

inexpert birder

that I am,

who can

identify

crows, magpies, sparrows, robins,

then gives up and says, jay, wild canary, duck, goose.

And eagle. I can spot the eagles.

The birds fly

stealth fighters

black.

But white angels

the pelicans and gulls

are deceivers.

When we round the island

see the dock

across the water

the pelicans flee

the gulls scatter.

And we start to paddle across

the open water

but the mud comes up

and thanks to Bob

– Big Ol’ Butt, I call myself –

we’re stuck

and with the wind

making ripples

on the water

I get vertigo

trying to pole like a Venitian gondolier

off the mud

to the shore.

I’m thinking I’ll have to take off the steel-toed boots

and walk the boat to the shore

but we persevere

find the channel

deeper water

and paddle to the dock

which I kiss

because I am dry/

And, for a while,

reconnected with nature.

Lucy,

the water dog

with the weight problem

and the gimpy leg,

meets us at the shore

as we walk up the bank

of mown grass

to the picnic tables

fire rippling as water in the pit

we eat as the sun sets

no spectacular sunset;

            Jim Watterson, aptly named,

                                    who owns this land

                        surrounded by water

                                    says in absence of clouds

                        the sun sets

            without adornment.