Above the Waterfall by Ron Rash Page B

water in this county, Gerald swears. Mineral rich, but Gerald claims the cherry tree’s roots sweeten it too. I lift the tin spring guard and fill the jar, twist the lid tight and set it on the ground. I scoop up a dipperful for myself, savor the chill passing into my chest as my nose inhales the after-rain smell of moss. When I place the tin back, I see a mud puppy, thready red gills fanning.
    As I walk back, MASON brailles my palm and all is brought back: clay floor cool under my feet, dusky potato smell, the pint and quart jars floating above me, grandmother’s tall hand lifting one down. You carry this one, she said. Even in the dim light the honey glowed, sunshine steeped in earthy blackness.
    To be there with her in that dark place and know I was safe.
    There are limits to what you owe your grandparents, Becky, Les had said, but he was wrong. How could there be, when what they gave me was not only their acceptance of my silence but so much more, the minnow in the springhouse guarding the water’s purity, spiders spinning webbed words, whip-poor-wills and white owls, woolly worms and snake skins, the sink of a star. All had resonance, meaning. Folklore, yes, but always in one way true, the seamless connection that Hopkins saw: Each mortal thing does one thing and the same. What limits : that after the morning in the school basement, word and wonder and world could be one.
    At the park Carlos has the warning signs posted. I check in with him and then walk downstream to make sure no dead fish are there. As I cross the bridge, Les’s thorned words.
    You’ve been wrong before .
    Don’t think of anything but here and now, only here, only now. On a maypop vine a saddleback caterpillar clings. Acharia stimulea. Oarlike legs, green and brown whitebristled body. Soon it will sleep in its self-spun shroud, winter dreaming as spring’s moth-wings slowly sprout. At my feet are snakeroot and sumac, farther on knotweed and skullcap. I whisper each name. Above me birch and beech, red oak and shagbark hickory. In the thicker canopy, stilts of sunlight stalk the ground.
    The trail sways closer to the stream. A mane of whitewater falls off a stone shelf, lands loudly. Then the creek curves into shadow. Ferns sleeve both banks green. Water softly licks stone. On a sandbar an otter’s tracks. The world’s first words ever printed: I was here . In Lascaux too: amid that floating menagerie, reed-blown red pigment holds the human hand aloft, oncepresence indelible. Where the otter left the stream, the tail’s drag makes an exclamation point. The woods pull back and sunlight surprises the water. Glitters of pyrite. I lift a piece of rock crystal. Time smoothed. What patience to have all edges worn away. As I roll it over my palm, colors gather and spill. I set the stone back and take the loop trail to the meadow, then follow the stream to the park boundary. Across the road I see a DENR van. A resort worker with a black plastic bag gathers dead fish. As he moves upstream, the turkey buzzards flap from branch to branch. Like all Cathartidae, voiceless.
    I stand in a patch of clover, only then realize I haven’t seen a single honeybee. I turn to go back and as I do the meadow withers into dust. Trees melt like candles and the mountains blacken. I lean forward, palms on knees, and take deep steady breaths. I slowly raise my head. The meadow and trees have returned. It is here, and I am here.
    But I have seen this world
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â a world become
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â where wind and water
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â