On Barton Creek

After breakfast tacos at a picnic table beneath some Live Oak trees, we crossed the street to the trail head and walked down the hill to where a path goes one way downstream and the other way up. We took the one way as having perhaps the better claim since I'd never trodden there and Trudy wanted to.

We walked for a while on the path and then climbed down the bank out into the full light of day and walked on the white, round stones that sometimes make the clear water rush and churn. Here and there were still pools where a spring must still run even though the creek hasn't for many months.

When we stopped to listen, we could hear Cardinals in the forest and the falling trill of a Canyon Wren, first on one side of us then on the other. And overhead once or twice we heard the cry of a hawk and saw it circling in the warm spring breeze. And sometimes we heard voices from the trees and could see people on the shaded path walking one way or the other, always oblivious to us out there on the stones.

Last night it rained and this morning, too. It came down slowly for a while and hard for a while, sometimes running around the corner of the house in a minor torrent. It has stopped now, and the ground is soft to walk on. But the sky is grey, and with any luck we'll get some more before the day is thru. We'll need it if the creek is to rush and churn this spring, and time is running out.

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