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
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three of the four boat trailers at the launch area
Photo by J. Harrington
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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, cavedAcross the river, the park and the little Ferris wheelclosed downThe great oaks emptying, russet, gussetedthe hovering slant light leaking from the outer edgeof cloud bedleads and shawls pulled forthThy synchrony of the lost elements recoveredthe shivering water surfaces, planar unmeldings, remeldings,riverine alchemies, unlocketed selvesnow the reemergence, the sun pouring global golduptilted, gobleted, incantedAm I not as God made me but stranger?Made stranger still by what I have seenat this hour of earth untended, unministered—light caught up in the river’s grooved treadThat sun more like a mass grope out of emptinessand the black river weeds before it, torn and trained,rocketed and stark and stuck-toThe tall shadow of the willow grows forthAnd the spare stems of the grasses and the rods of the mulleinAnd these are the stations of this riverThe houses and the boats and the parked carsThe growing wedge the ducks make moving forward, the shapeof the element there among the weeds that jut forward,the mass of the willows growing deeper in green and sunderingThe backfall of sun going downwardThe surface of the river coming clear of its own admixtureThe ducks moving over like slow planes in formation,barely seen needles hauling white threads,secretly heedingThe fish in my skin relinquishesWill I know then what I have become?The river darkens from its end of trees closing inThere is the sun and this deep depressionExiting as viewed in this river
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