My new favorite spot is on the riverbank by the elephant graveyard. It’s prickly with dry grass, charred by old fires, and studded with shell casings. It has a giddy breeze and the sound of water rushing by in some kind of big hurry. It has a huge slick of melting river ice that glares into the sky with blinding defiance and tips over helplessly into the clear water. The steep bank is made just right for the dangling of tired, muddy boots. I lay out there on Sunday afternoon, watching blue roll onto the sky, tasting the dust on the air and reveling in the sudden, dry earth under my shoulderblades. Sometimes, lying under a blue sky like that, in just that kind of wind, I can let my heart fly up like a kite with a long, dancing tail. That’s the happiest I know how to be.

I went down to the bank tonight just to think for a while, and to read my book and listen to water bringing the cold mountain song down like a lullaby. There are sirens in the Chandalar, luring sailors into the hills.

let me put my arms around you
(shush shush shush)
like this circle ’round the sun
(hush sh-shush)
come running to the woods, girl
(shush shush shush)
when your work is good and done
(hush sh-shush)

or just let screen door slam to
(shush shush shush)
and let the water run
(hush sh-shush)
so I can put my arms around you
(hush now hush)
like this circle ’round the sun

1:03 am, north of a circle ’round the sun.