Dry Spell: 1980

The trickle of water from the Garfield Falls looks as thin as straw-colored hair, each strand exposed as it tumbled to the sprawl of stones beneath. I never saw the low side so naked, with branches and rocks shaping a bleak landscape over which I could almost walk without getting wet. On either short, the dry season devours the trees, digs the earth from benath their foots so that both banks seem like webs waiting for the unwary traveler.
The sport fishermen stand beside the shrinking puddles, staring down at the helpless hump-backed cat fish, men needing only two good hands to have them in their nets -- these puddles so muddy and murky each might contain soup. Carp carwl in the deeper eddies, hugging the bottom, feeding off the roots of reeds.
Only the toads and turtles and crickets seem unphased, croaking as the temperature rises or sunning themselves on flast stones, while at the splintered dock, my thin legs stick out over the side, two more pink roots reaching for rain.