Fly Away Home

II - Down by the River

I love to walk through the river, barefoot I can touch the smooth slimed rocks, pebbles, I can feel the floating leaves skim my almost submerged calves and then the unknown tickling my ankles. I watch, mesmerized by the sun's flickered rays, the leaves dappled golden green and the river, sprinkled with a muddy yellow dust. I dip my finger in and taste, those luscious ripples and I trail my cold finger over my collar bone.

A yellow spider dangles from her precarious web, eight legs flailing and a dragonfly bobs through the air around the river's shore. I let myself sink to my chin and stroke the riverbed with my hands. I pick up a handful of sand and gravel, lift it from the water and admire the mixture of earth colours, rough textures sliding down my forearm. I want to breathe it all in, absorb everything around me through every pore in my skin. Far, far away in the distance I hear the occasional car drive along the road, adorned on each side by poplar after poplar tree which create a great hallway towards nowhere.

The sky is a purplish blue, and the sun drifts peacefully in the west, clinging to the sky, not quite ready to sink. Orange and pink ribbons weave through the clouds towards a pale crescent moon which stands alone. Birds perch on the pylon cables overhead which buzz a tingling sound if you listen closely enough. I tune them out. Goose bumps have risen on my skin and I rise from the water, so that it is up to my waist, pooling in my navel. I drop a finger in the water, watch the ripples. I glide slowly over to the riverbank, and climb out. I walk barefoot through the field back to the house, and I breathe it all in, a dog barks some way away. The cows watch cautiously as I walk past them. I love it here. Time stops when I am here.