the trick of the second bridge
This weekend, gfish, shadowblue, and I are going on a three-day canoeing trip along the Columbia river. These pictures are from one of our practice trips.
Previous Green River pictures here. We started in the same places as before, but canoed an extra several miles, into more industrial areas.
They had put a sign next to the yellow fiber-optic that said, "THIS LINE CONTAINS NO SALVAGABLE COPPER". What, were they expecting a canoe full of crazed urban blacksmiths, collecting scrap metal as they went?
... wait, never mind.
The first bridge is made of metal and rust and moss and a deep clear note like a struck anvil, a thing of shadows and graceful squares. The trick here is the second bridge, laid vertically through the first, a thing of space and light. It was sunny, unusual, and when you leaned over the canoe and looked down you could see the bright ripple lines fanning out around your shadow's head, light caught in water. The corona would converge, at the shadow of your eyes, if your shadow wasn't in the way.
This is the bridge where the owls wait and dream of night. The canoe on the water is a knife of shadow against their pillars, and the owls call to the shade as it passes over them. They have half-real voices, like ghosts, and it seems to get quieter when they speak.
After a while the river flows through Boeing's territory. Along the shores rusty cable is tangled like vines, and there are half-finished cockpits, sleek and awkward as penguins, along the docks. There is a long, low machine shop, set on a reinforced creosote-scented pier. The wierdly thick pillars and crossbraces make a strange music when the water moves around them, echoes and overtones.
We peered in at the shop, at polished cabinets full of strange tools. It smells like metal and oil and cutting fluid. It's a good thing nobody makes a perfume like that; I could be seduced in a heartbeat. :)
Refineries have a sort of fairy-tale aspect, all this open superstructure with lights at every joint, towers of air and light. At some point you start to wonder about whether it's getting too dark to find a place to pull out of the water. Especially if, say, the last eight miles of the trip have been upriver because you had no idea the tide came in this far, and you have to paddle very hard not to be swept away backwards. Ooops.
Still in the shadow of the second bridge.
I am pleased to announce that we did, in fact, find out car just before true darkness. Ow. I am also please to announce let's never do that again, thanks. :)
Previous Green River pictures here. We started in the same places as before, but canoed an extra several miles, into more industrial areas.
They had put a sign next to the yellow fiber-optic that said, "THIS LINE CONTAINS NO SALVAGABLE COPPER". What, were they expecting a canoe full of crazed urban blacksmiths, collecting scrap metal as they went?
... wait, never mind.
The first bridge is made of metal and rust and moss and a deep clear note like a struck anvil, a thing of shadows and graceful squares. The trick here is the second bridge, laid vertically through the first, a thing of space and light. It was sunny, unusual, and when you leaned over the canoe and looked down you could see the bright ripple lines fanning out around your shadow's head, light caught in water. The corona would converge, at the shadow of your eyes, if your shadow wasn't in the way.
This is the bridge where the owls wait and dream of night. The canoe on the water is a knife of shadow against their pillars, and the owls call to the shade as it passes over them. They have half-real voices, like ghosts, and it seems to get quieter when they speak.
After a while the river flows through Boeing's territory. Along the shores rusty cable is tangled like vines, and there are half-finished cockpits, sleek and awkward as penguins, along the docks. There is a long, low machine shop, set on a reinforced creosote-scented pier. The wierdly thick pillars and crossbraces make a strange music when the water moves around them, echoes and overtones.
We peered in at the shop, at polished cabinets full of strange tools. It smells like metal and oil and cutting fluid. It's a good thing nobody makes a perfume like that; I could be seduced in a heartbeat. :)
Refineries have a sort of fairy-tale aspect, all this open superstructure with lights at every joint, towers of air and light. At some point you start to wonder about whether it's getting too dark to find a place to pull out of the water. Especially if, say, the last eight miles of the trip have been upriver because you had no idea the tide came in this far, and you have to paddle very hard not to be swept away backwards. Ooops.
Still in the shadow of the second bridge.
I am pleased to announce that we did, in fact, find out car just before true darkness. Ow. I am also please to announce let's never do that again, thanks. :)