A "winter"(?) surprise

Today we followed through on our plan to take a drive to Franconia and see what the St. Croix river is up to. Actually, in reality, the phrase is what the river is down to. Water levels looked to be down several feet from Summer flows. The river is all open water, with a scattering of ice floes floating downstream. So far, no real surprises. What we weren't expecting, in the least, were the four, that's right, four, vehicles and boat trailers parked at the launch area. We know, it was 48℉ while we were there. The sun is shining and the sky is blue and most of us are suffering varying degrees of COVID fatigue. But, four boats, on the St. Croix, in Minnesota, on December 9? Really? Or, maybe we've just gotten old and wimpy but December boating is unusual bordering on weird.

recently launched amid scattered ice floes on December 9

Photo by J. Harrington

three of the four boat trailers at the launch area

Photo by J. Harrington

The village of houses and cabins is pretty much the same as the last time we visited, except that a person or persons unknown have beautified the bridge railings with seasonal greenery and lights. It might be worth a trip back some evening soon to see them when they're at an advantage and not in bright sunshine. 

a seasonally decorated bridge

Photo by J. Harrington

So, we've confirmed that both the Sunrise and St. Croix rivers are open water; local lakes are covered in sheet ice; the lake ice is too thin for skating etc., and the river water is just fine for boating. This year continues its list of aberrant events and conditions. Maybe we've moved beyond a "new normal" to a "new abnormal." Is Rod Serling directing next year too?

Winter Journal: The Sky Is the Lost Orpheum

By Emily Wilson

The shelter of it carved, caved

Across the river, the park and the little Ferris wheel

       closed down

The great oaks emptying, russet, gusseted

the hovering slant light leaking from the outer edge

       of cloud bed

leads and shawls pulled forth

Thy synchrony of the lost elements recovered

the shivering water surfaces, planar unmeldings, remeldings,

       riverine alchemies, unlocketed selves

now the reemergence, the sun pouring global gold

       uptilted, gobleted, incanted

Am I not as God made me but stranger?

Made stranger still by what I have seen

at this hour of earth untended, unministered—

light caught up in the river’s grooved tread

That sun more like a mass grope out of emptiness

       and the black river weeds before it, torn and trained,

       rocketed and stark and stuck-to

The tall shadow of the willow grows forth

And the spare stems of the grasses and the rods of the mullein

And these are the stations of this river

The houses and the boats and the parked cars

The growing wedge the ducks make moving forward, the shape

       of the element there among the weeds that jut forward,

the mass of the willows growing deeper in green and sundering

The backfall of sun going downward

The surface of the river coming clear of its own admixture

The ducks moving over like slow planes in formation,

       barely seen needles hauling white threads,

       secretly heeding

The fish in my skin relinquishes

Will I know then what I have become?

The river darkens from its end of trees closing in

There is the sun and this deep depression

Exiting as viewed in this river

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