Cattails

My son runs ahead of my husband and I on a thin path that trails off into mudflats. We’ve  parked along a narrow road that stops abruptly in front of a dike. We cannot see the water but we can see, just barely, the tops of cattails.  We have come here, to the Skagit River…

The Edge of Everything

I go to the woods, the forest, the place where trees grow.    I go there to find the leaves of maple trees.  The trees are tightly spaced, and the leaves packed between the tangled tree roots.  What should I do with that?  Make a metaphor?  Pretend I know what I’m talking about? I go to the maples,…

Summer

These days are golden. Or that’s what I tell myself as we head to the river. It’s what I told myself in June or May even, before school was out, the day we drive down to the bay to buy oysters. The day we sit in sunshine and eat cinnamon rolls in the afternoon for…