Spring

in Summer

Off the trail a little ways is a manmade bench parallel to a weathered wooden fence, or rather, the part of a fence, since it is a single fence section with four boards sprouting out of it in obtuse angles. Is this a fence? Why is there a random almost-fence in the middle of the woods? I sit on the manmade bench to contemplate the object before me. An informative sign hanging on the not-quite fence reads,

“Old Springs

This is a spring that was

used by the Carr family

when they lived here in

1870. The spring provided

a source of clean drinking

water and was also used as

a storage location to keep

perishable foods cool.”

Thirst tickles me by this barely trickle beginning that seems to be mostly used up by the lush ferns who emerge along the creek bed. It is hard to believe that such an insubstantial quantity of water, even over time, could have carved this canyon (if we want to call it that), this creek bed (if we are attempting to choose words closer to honesty), this natural trough through the woods. It is hard to believe that this dampness on stone once brought hope, livelihood, and settlement. Though, on this day near summer's solstice, the coolness of earth’s deep parts vent out of the spring’s pores and I can understand the attraction of such a place and why the prophet Isaiah readily used springs as a metaphor for salvation in the desert.

There is debris downhill. Once towering trunks now lay leveled across the natural ditch leaving deposited leaves jammed in the wedge of a turn, an hourglass stuck until the natural powers of decay make space for a flow. For now, the remnant of the creek disappears underneath this pile of abandoned plant parts, working invisibly to undermine the appearance of death above, creating something beautiful, stinky, and lush for life.

Which is nice, but how many sections of fence are required for a fence to be a fence? Is a single section of fence with grounding polls enough to be called a fence? Is there another term for this structure? Is it only a fence-like sign post? Is a sign post a lesser sort of fence? As I sit on the bench by the spring and the wooden beam/pole structure, I am haunted by these questions.

In wordy wordiness,

Walter