I walk out to check the first beach. There is a good set of coyote tracks...among the smell of a few dead humpies.
Coyote came upriver
to where I am now
two claws protrude on one foot
He followed the shore
and I followed him
separated by eight or twelve hours
Coyote stopped to smell a dead humpy
maybe he took a taste
now, it is a story
At the beaver drag
deer tracks, coyote tracks
I stop my pursuit
The beaver have not been here in days.
It is and is going to be a fine early fall day.
At 1:00pm it starts to rain, although, for me, this does not change my forecast one bit.
Two guys from the USGS drive up. They are going to check the river gauge and I hop a lift with them because I want to see what is inside those concrete towers on the river bank. I also want to pick their heads for data. The Smoke Farm gauge dates to the mid 1930's. It is the only gauge on the N. Fork of the Stilliguamish that reads level and stage (which I just muddle together when I am worried about water levels - one only needs to know that the river is too high, too low, or just fine). They come to do this every 6 to 8 weeks.
I work on specimen boxes until the rain runs itself out.
When it is dark, I read poetry by Robert Sund while the neighbor shoots his gun. If I was a good poet I would sound just like Robert Sund, because when I read his stuff it sounds to me like it is coming out of my head, although it is not (it is going into my head, oddly enough). I generally do not like poetry. I recently said that to a poet...it was awkward (her poetry was pretty good...it reminded me some of Robert Sund). This paragraph is going in circles.
A poem by Robert Sund -
In the world of men
centuries go by leaving
little trace.
A blossom in men is
like a cathedral,
seldom built.
It must be that in schools
when a blackboard is being erased,
under the sweeping hand,
some words
disappear forever.
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