A Good Evening

It was dark. The smell of cedar was rolling down the hillside on the cold evening air. Orion was high in the black night sky chasing the seven sisters into the west. It had been a good evening -- good friends, good things to eat.

As I turned the car around and switched on the headlights to drive down the hill, Ben said from the back seat, Well, that was a good evening of elderly friends!

What!? I gasped from behind the front. Elderly?

Trudy laughed.

A good evening with ... elder friends, he said, having rechosen his words.

Elder friends?

... with old friends.

Old?

Well, he said, starting from scratch. That was a good evening with friends of old.

Now you're talking.

8:24:14 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Sandwiches by Barton Creek

On the far side of the creek, a grove of sycamores lines the bank. Their smooth, pale trunks shoot up into a cloudless, dark blue sky. Their red roots twist down into the white limestone, emerging here and there into the course of the rushing stream.

On the near side, more sycamores cluster by the water's edge. They lean downstream, persuaded by the evident force of annual springtime floods. Their trunks are battered and twisted, their broken limbs bashed by the surge of some spring long-ago.

Between the trees, the cool waters of Barton Creek race downstream, over shallow rapids, around in slow eddies, and into pools so deep that the light of midday fails to reveal their depths although the water is crystal clear.

The waters fall into a swirling green-blue foam. Their soothing sound fills the canyon. And amid this all, we eat our ham sandwiches.

1:43:39 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []