As we sit on the shore in the last bits
of a day torn up by road time, stops for information, and restocking supplies, our
spirits are sewn back together by the calm of the gently rippling lake. This intimate
spot is held by the Rocky Mountains rising up behind the nearer foreground of
nested hills. White scatterings run in uneven stripes and clumps—no pattern
except gravity taking the snow down in runoffs and slides. A waterfall rushes
in the far distance, not visible but fully present with us. The far shore’s evergreen
forest is a tiered shelf of upside down ice cream cones awaiting the giant’s
hand that will pluck and fill it with the elixir of life: homemade ice cream
the color of tanned hides, the texture like the bouldery path we hiked
earlier. No matter how still and straight the brown, tan, and black tree trunks
stand on the bank to the left, their not-identical twin watery image waves, spins,
and wiggles like happy dancing snakes.
The mountains standing in observance of
the water’s life-giving powers are mirrored over and over again—their inverted,
jagged edges swimming toward me. I allow my right hand to reach out over the
water, stretching toward and outlining the glistening liquid peaks; I feel sure
I can touch the actual high alpine ridge tops just by making contact with their
reflection. The edges move closer as if straining, too, to connect with my
outstretched arm. I let the long, light echoes of late afternoon reach across
the water in their looser, freer form and lap at my fingertips. The bouncing
lines of giggling lake water make a small, gentle sound—kissing the pebbles on
the small shoreline on which we sit. It is an embracing sound: the baby’s sweet
coo, the dog’s heavy sleep-breath, the sigh of a lover after he’s spent himself
intertwined with his sweetheart.
Journal Entry 2011 Montana
All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2017 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
