Environmental Stewardship Commission (MEESC)

I stood in the stand of black ash listening to the water making its way over the rocks and through the branches, roots and leaves down to the river. It was easy to see why so many composers found this sound to be profound music. The seeping ground is defined as apart from the river, and like so many boundaries it seems artificial and arbitrary. A more realistic description may be that the river is all this moving water making its way north, and we make our home in the river, settling ourselves on enough substantial rock and clay that the moving water lets us have our stay.

"I've known rivers" wrote Langston Hughes, " I"ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the river." Like the towering black ash, Langston became my companion listening to the flow of water beneath my feet. We were joined by another. "nothing seems to remain...a man passes through the ages of life..." It's fall and John Donne's words hung out in the misty air anticipating the death like stillness of winter when these streams beneath will be silenced. He continued, "A life that could last through and beyond death, would have to be a deeper life than the ordinary. It would have to be some life that men have without knowing it, some current that runs far beneath the surface. To find it would be like seeing something fiery in the depths of life; it would be like hearing a rythmn in life that is not ordinarily heard. The question is whether a man, if he found such a life, could he bear to live it, whether he could live at that depth, whether he could live according to that rythmn. A deeper life would be like an undertow, like a current that sets seaward..."

I know I will return to the black ash swamp several times before freeze up. I will need to hear its music. I also know that I will seek out that same sound in the spring. I wonder if it will be the same music, or will it have a different theme. There is no reason to race on ahead. We'll get there soon enough, and in the meantime it is enough to let this presence seep into our deep consciousness and let our souls grow deep like the rivers.

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