A paddle scoops through the crystal water and pulls the canoe forward. The pines murmur. Clouds make their slow progress across the cold afternoon.
Behind, sediment is disturbed in the wake of the traveller. It fans out like a wound across the river, as if the canoe is a scalpel.
But it will do no good to look back now. What is unearthed cannot be replaced by anything but time and the current. The traveller must look forwards, lest they dash themselves against the rocks.
Paddy Dobson
2nd September 2020