Fragments From Floyd

Did you know that there are only two natural lakes in all of Virginia? Back in Alabama where I grew up, every depression had the potential to fill with water and become a pond. Even the median strip on the interstates often became places where people illegally catch sunfish for dinner. Water was everywhere, tepid and tawny with the sediment picked up from red soils and clays.

Mountain water, spring fed, runs clear and cold. That we have ended up on a piece of earth with flowing water is a double blessing since I come from a childhood immersed in it. Most mornings, even before first light, I step out onto the front porch with a cup of coffee in my hand and listen to the comforting susurrations from our creeks. I remember a thousand tiny fish caught long ago, pantlegs rolled up wading in Alabama mud and rocks tossed sideways across a hundred puddles, ponds and southern lakes.

Goose Creek and Nameless Creek converge about one-and-a-half stones throw from where I sit. In the image, you can faintly see the red roof of the barn near the right margin. The streams are choked with russet oak leaves. A thin fog hangs in the valley just before the sun crests the east ridge. Am I the only one who hears laughter in water?