When I was a child, this was a river. It came out from under the road and flowed off into the distance. Every time we drove by, I swore that some day I would get myself a pair of high fisherman's boots, or even rain boots, and wade down the river to find out where it went. A few times, when I was a bit older, I walked down to the river and sat on the top of the cement culvert at the edge of the road. Bright green water grass grew there, undulating with the flow of the water. Occasionally you could see fish, and we tried to tempt them with pieces of tender young leaves or if we were lucky, a squiggling earthworm. The water was about 2 feet deep at the edge back then... I believe I stepped in it only once. It was cold... clear and gently moving. We dropped leaves and twigs in the river on one side of the road and waited and watched for them to come out on this side.
In March, I'd watch the woods on the sides of this river for signs of skunk cabbage - a sign that spring was near. The plants would start as tiny red cups and evolve into bright green things resembling heads of romaine lettuce. When the skunk cabbage came, it was not long before you'd hear the frogs... in the evening, the chirping, singing, glorious frogs. As soon as I was old enough to drive, I'd roll down my car windows as I drove by those wonderful evenings in spring, just to hear those glorious frogs.
And now the river is dry. Technically, it's a river. The word "river" is in it's name, but I always called it The Stream. It was my stream (maybe other kids thought of it as their own also) part of my childhood, my adolescence, my adult life. I observe the seasons by their changes in the stream. Just a few years ago I saw a heron standing in the water (the water was so much lower already!) fishing for dinner at dusk. I loved to watch the tree tops overhead in fall - the variety of trees always made a spectacular fall display. In winter, you'd get confirmation that it had been a really cold winter when the ice almost covered the water (this is not that far north, where that happens every year). When we had a lot of rain, the water overflowed onto the road. Wasn't it just a few years ago that I saw the car that had skidded off the road and into the thick shrubs of the marsh?
A friend who lives just a mile or so upstream told my husband and I that this river used to run through his property 50 years ago. He showed us the exact spot - now covered in lush, chartreuse grass, where children of yesteryear used to go swimming.
The Dry has crept down, devouring my stream; killing it. We've had a bit more rain lately, and in the snow, I see a soggy line where my stream used to be, a shadow of its former self.
It makes me hopeful, but it's a sad kind of hope. I know that regardless, it's remaining time is not long. Has it been sucked up by lawns and sprinklers, countless running faucets, swimming pools, dirty cars, flushing toilets? Is it because of the sand and gravel pit, whose equipment continuously gouges the earth two miles upstream, where a giant lake (that virtually no one notices), has bloomed amidst the sand and rock piles?
Has anyone else noticed but me?
Does anyone else care?
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