19 February 2007. Even blue to the sky, green grass matte across yard--all the new shoots. Three squirrels in spring attire--welcome. Buds on plum and Chinese elm--a wash of new leaves, set against twisty red-brown limbs. Every turn revealed.
It was there on your banks we fought many a fight
Sheridan's boys in the blockhouse that night
They saw us in death but never in flight
Roll on, Columbia, roll on...
Roadway high above the river, hugging the side of the gorge--waterfalls and ferns--sixty-some inches of rain, forests damp with dew, russet-topped mushrooms everywhere--more a warm gray-brown, boletus edulis--the good ones, open spore tracks under wide cap, forest denizens, solid in their stance...stalwart fungi--they belong there...
Green Douglas firs where the waters cut through
Down her wild mountains and canyons she flew
Canadian Northwest to the oceans so blue
Roll on Columbia, roll on...
Winding road with hand-set walls of stone--our kind of Europe--from sometime in the '30s--the WPA. Men at work at last. Also a blessing...
Oregon bound... 2.45
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