A chain of random events led me to Riverbend and Great Falls. Where the river bends, it was surprisingly quiet. Its bank is flat, and water still. I let out a few shouts; they all met with silence. I threw a stone here and there only causing bubbles that fizzled quickly. It looks very different in Great Falls. The picnic ground was crowded; I had some mixed salad and grilled salmon at a table with a bear and a cub (a wonderful cub). Down the river, I stopped at a hidden beach to say hi to a tiger and a dragon. On a tree limb, I sat a while drinking tea with a poet at the water’s edge. A wise one and I walked on; we climbed up a boulder and contemplated for a moment a breathtaking view of the river and cliffs. Some were trying the Billy Goat on the other side of the river. Those who followed the Ridge would in the end arrive at Difficult Run, the park’s boundary. I heard three young girls laughing there, their laughter resounding bright above the river. I did not go down that path this time: I was drawn by the roaring rapids, where the river has made its turn, and drops, to reveal dramatic new scenery. I had Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents and Rilke’s Duino Elegies with me but didn’t read them. I thought of Miguel Asturias and Men of Maize.
The random events involved bugs in my gut, pastries in a store, and police cars on the streets, and might have started much earlier with some Chinese dumplings I ate.
