Kitchen Hill

On Sunday, I hiked to the top of Kitchen Hill. A strong breeze, smelling distinctly of wild flowers, did wonders to keep the mosquitoes away. At the summit, I met a duck; a male mallard who was so content with having his tail feathers in the air, and his bill beneath the water,that I was able to walk right up upon him without him noticing me.
After he was satisfied with his lunch, he promptly stood on one leg in very shallow water and began to preen his feathers nonchalantly. I was particularly struck by the always seemingly empty land and this one lone duck. We stood there together each in our place, just being quite for a long while. Without words or any mutual acknowledgment, we became friends.
When at last he took to wing, it was with more of a tender, unhurried, "adieu" than a frightened duck-like, quacking, rush! I was sad to see him go.
Far below, in the valley, the river has swelled. Parts of land that were not islands a day ago, are becoming so by the hour. Now, underneath the bridge, where the wide, quick waters are forced to be funneled, a falls is occurring. The froth of rapid turbulence has only just begun to hint at the force that will grow more powerful, indeed, become extremely violent soon(in another month, anything that were to be dropped into the river from the wooden bridge, a house hold appliance or a bus, a mobile home!, would have all of its atoms reconstructed in a matter of seconds).
Tonight I walked down to the channel of the Watson not yet full of water. I was accompanying two of the scientists that are working out of our building for the month. Adrianne and Nick. A geologist and a physicist. Adrianne, was searching for a ventifact, "smaller than torso size" but these rocks are massive or huge, and at the very least, are "two man rocks" that is, unable to be lifted without two men. Phenomenally voluptuous, bronzed with mineral veneers, sparkling with mica and feldspar, polished, pocketed and brushed, (as if by the hands of children entranced with a well loved chore)they refuse to be budged, but cannot remain untouched. Cupped and scalloped by wind and sand, these natural sculptures represent time and patterns of nature that not even a trained physicist and geologist can agree upon the formation of their chanced existence.
At long last, we found a few 15 pounders Adrianne would be able to stuff into her suitcases, and bring home with her to New York City.
In the distance, looking out the fjord, the first precipitous clouds in weeks, drew down a gray blur of rain between sky and the long far sea. Scudding, twilight -dirty -at midnight, cumulus, now move softly to the north. Passing over rock and pond and nestled ducks, moving underneath the always static dome of high latitude summer blue, a whisper of birds murmurs and even the standing musk ox, must now lay down for sleep.