Paddling in the mourning

It is the first day in over 3 months where I cannot enter the beaver forest. The water has dropped a few inches this week, the narrow gaps that I had squeezed through are even thinner, the shallow spots where I just cleared beaver felled trees are now land bridges. I can come back in nine months.


I stop among the lotus pads - something I more often complain about because they restrict my paddling during the summer, but today the pads are alive, or I should say, today I notice how alive the pads are. Bees move among the blossoms and rest on the pads themselves, dragonflies are all around, and something stirs under the pads as I move. I don't mind them much today.


The surviving female adult eagle from the south nest flies by. Her mate was killed yesterday by a vehicle on the stupid bridge that passes through this beautiful area, a dead scar, an obscene gesture of progress. I have no response to it other than my own verbal obscenities. So, the sunny warm day has a certain somberness to it. I saw their eaglet in a tree two days ago... "so it goes".