slack tide

two colors in the palette du marsh today, silver water, very still, mirroring the pale gray sky, and monochrome tan riverbanks. there is an entire tree stranded out there, long stripped bare, mostly under water right now, with little branches poking up like a neat row of garden stakes. drift wood. summers on lake michigan we collected it, burned it in bonfires on the beach under the stars, hauled it up to the cottage as lawn sculpture. if you were lucky and had a good eye you might find a small, smooth bird or ship or grasshopper to bring inside for the mantle or windowsill, and rub with your hands and face, unique pleasures.

driftwood may weigh a lot when it first washes up, but when dried out be light as a balsa glider. even after something dies, in this case a tree, and can no longer grow or bear fruit or turn CO2 into oxygen, it can nevertheless transform and persist, in different forms, with new uses and beauty, tangible and otherwise, still full of surprises.