The 6:00 AM walk to the lakeshore
To bathe and swim.
This morning a different route through the still-shaded fields
Angling to a point where the sun is splashing the shoreline.
At the old high water mark
Are logs, twigs, branches, sticks.
Old roots in twisted and fantastic shapes.
Weathered and washed and warped from their time in the river
The scouring of the sand
And the bleaching of the sun
I collect many of these creations and take them home to arrange
Them in the garden.
And with the idea of creating a business.
“Old Sticks and Other Such.”
Sanded and varnished they have a truly unique beauty.
I could sell them to passers-by who would be unaware that a whole warehouse of
Such treasures existed free for the taking.
However, like many of my ideas, this one remains in the dreaming stage.
One twisted stick for Evelyn’s collection.
I stoop to pick it up and suddenly realize that
This stick has been moved before, no longer
Lying in the natural resting position in which the receding waters
Have left it.
It lies across another stick
And maybe this is what drew my attention.
All around, twisted sticks and bent twigs, an old root with its tentacles reaching skyward.
Bits of bark have been arranged to set off the special beauty of each piece.
Or maybe not. Maybe I am imagining.
Perhaps they are accidentally in this arrangement.
But I can see where the ground has been left bare by their movement.
I leave the stick where it lies, not wanting to unbalance the harmony.
Ten steps later, another arrangement, a jumble of knots and burls.
And then a puzzle of weathered boards.
Who would have taken the time to do this?
Why?
Close by, the grass has been flattened by the doe and her fawn who bed down on the field which lies between the few homes and the river, but I have never known deer to arrange their neighborhood.
In the course of the summer there are probably fewer than a dozen people who ever visit this beach,
And yet, someone has passed by and has taken the time to create this, knowing they will probably never return to see it, that only by the purest accident will anyone else see it, and that the rising of the river will transform it again.
For this person, the joy of art lies in the creation.
Not in the sharing or selling or recognition but simply in the doing.
By chance I came across your art today.
Whoever you are, I thank you.
I return to my pen and paper with the realization that what I write must be done only
For the purpose of enjoying what I do
And leaving the rest to chance.