Canyon, just you and me, we'll leave tomorrow after work.
Friday night we pack two army surplus sleeping bags rated
for the arctic leaking random goose down, a ground cloth,
some battered aluminum cookware and ancient packs,
the kind with skinny straps that dig into shoulders, warm
coats and fishing gear and that's all that fits in a '67 MG
Midget. Besides some instant oatmeal, dried fruit and coffee.
We better catch some fish or we're going to be hungry, but
Dad is good at that, he'll teach me where they hide and how
to catch them. Off into the valley after sunset, it's dark but
still hot, the top is down and we smell the irrigation water and
alfalfa out beyond the towns, the scent of meat and fried
potatoes in the yellow pools of light along the boulevards.
Orange groves silhouettes in black against the roots of the Sierra.
A sudden bend in the road catches him going much too fast
but we get through, sliding just a bit. How did he do that? With
hands and foot just so, a balance on the cusp of chaos and control.
It's cooler as we climb the spiny ridge leading to the mountains
dead rattlesnakes and squirrels on the pavement, the scent
of bear clover and cedar perfume the nose, the mountains
announce the altitude. A greeting in the dark, warm and pungent.
We don't talk much, long silences yawn between his stories of
prior trips: wading rivers, sliding down ravines through brush,
riding bikes up from the valley with his best friend, Bud.
The hot rod ford he had and the time it boiled over and scalded
his forehead. The scar that still shows if you know where to look.
midnight: We throw our bags down in a campground where all
the campers are asleep, embers in the fire pits fading into ashes.
At six we rise and hike before the sun or campers are awake,
to the stream above the canyon where he's been successful.
Dark pools and willows, bright cascades between the boulders.
Cast into the edges, let the hook and bait drift into the quiet places
where they shelter from the current. Like a conveyor belt he says.
And we did catch trout and ate them fried in butter with sage and lemon.
Made a bed of leaves and pine needles covered with a tarp that
crackled when we laced our hands behind our heads, staring at the
galaxies and stars against the black. The universe seemed deeper
in the mountain air. Sunday morning we walked back down the canyon,
drove into the heat, the sun bleary through the bug-smeared windshield.
At a crossroads store we stopped for cokes, smelling of fish and sweat,
sunburnt, wrapped within our silence, within our own returns to Mondays,
all the ones that march relentlessly like ants carrying our lives in pieces while we wait for Friday night promises. For magic to arrive on Saturday beside a stream.
