Electromagnetic Journey

 Electromagnetic Journey 

When the sun begins to sink in Hidden Valley the damselflies show up in hoards, bracing onto bulrushes and long blades of grass. Anything protruding will be kissed by their green-blue segmented bodies, including my bent knees. With closed wings and stillness, they ride the shaking grasses, and my leg hair, until a strong enough gust lifts them up and onto another protuberance. 

The magpie who spent its day fortifying a nest of reeds and grass tangled around a buoy, swoops by me and over the glassy green surface of the Colorado river. The sun sinks lower and darkens this side of the river. The shade brings a welcoming coolness. I can remove my long sleeved shirt without fear of the sun broiling my skin, lean back, and solace under this Cottonwood tree. Lounging with legs crossed on a plastic chair, someone left here with a boulder in its seat, on the water’s edge. A gift to everyone.

The magpie is back, anxious as ever, precisely placing twigs on its buoy landing pad. Fibrous passengers make their way down the slippery emerald highway. Some enjoy getting caught in whorls and spins while others ride the swiftest, straightest currents southward. 

The sun is taking its time to fall from the sky, squeezing out its tie-dye, then plunging into the Old Woman hills when I didn’t notice. Still, the wide river runs full of energy. The sun has sunk behind me but in front the river lights up in pink hues on the opposite side and in the Eastern sky. 

From pink to peach to cream to yellow. Wild beasts take advantage of the longer wavelengths obscuring their erratic flight patterns from unassuming insects. Palm-sized bats flutter and swirl upwards then corkscrew backwards snatching up damselflies, moths and mosquitoes. Nightingales slice the sky apart with their black velvet daggers. 

The fading light mingles on the water’s surface, the pink hues switch places with a dark blue that now settles above the water. The sun carves a sliver of white in the highest point of the sky. The sickle sends glistening beams downward illuminating driftwood. 

Two brothers are crouched on rocks piled adjacent to a channel where boats go to launch. One is transfixed as a flathead catfish nibbles on his smallmouth bass. The older one, allows his younger brother to lead the pursuit while he revels in pangs of anticipation for a monster to be pulled from the river’s depths. Their grandparents have sprung to their golf cart at word of the big catch. They giggle in delight at their grandson’s obstinate fight with the mudcat, his rod bent way beyond its action. The remnants of fallen sun flicker on their faces, revealing cheeks with color lifted upwards. 

Boys bring surprises, awaken wonder and beauty. Grandparents imprint a landscape, composed of different colors, patterns, and textures. A fabric with fragments needing time for tying and retying. Somehow they knew this, which is why they all arrived. The golf cart with Grammie and Grampie bumble back to the house. The daytime cacophony from motorboats and jet skis has changed guards with squeaking mice, chirping bats, and the long deep croaking of toads. The sun has long since disappeared. The boys remain at the river’s side, casting and recasting with only the sliver in the sky to guide them. Daylight transforms and is conserved through action of wild beasts in the night.