As I sit by the water enjoying the last
bits of a day torn up by road time, stops for information, stocking up on gas
and groceries, the day is sewn back together with the calm of this gently rippling
lake. Here I find an intimacy highlighted by the Rocky Mountains that rise up,
protective, behind the nearer foreground of nested hills. White snowy
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 from this particular vantage point, though my sense of sight yearns
for it. On the far bank is a low forest of green ice cream cones stacked on
tiered shelves. No matter how still and straight the tan and black tree trunks stand, the watery image - their twin-not-identical - waves and spins,
wiggling like happy dancing snakes. The mountains that stand in observance of
the water’s life-giving powers, reflect themselves over and over again so that
their inverted jagged ridges reach toward me; I stretch my right hand out over
the water, outlining the ridge top, “feeling” it in the watery mirror. I could
touch those high alpine peaks if only I wade a few feet into the ice cold lake. The
edges move closer, as if straining too: to reach, to connect, to make intimate contact
with this reverent human. I have no desire to traverse the forest or climb the
mountains, to make it to the summit which is
the top of the world. All I truly need is to let the long reflections of late
afternoon reach across the water in their looser, freer image-form and lap at my
waiting fingertips. The water that comes toward me, moving in bouncing
lines of giggling wetness, makes a gentle sound; it kisses the pebbles on
the small shoreline on which I sit. It is tender, enfolding: the sweet
baby’s coo, a dog’s heavy sleep-breath, the whisper of wind in grass. 
All blog photographs taken by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
