sometimes…

…you could almost forget that the world is hovering on the verge of mass destruction. You could almost. When you walked down to the lake after a night of rain, every surface was fresh. A trout surfaced not far off shore and the loon you’ve been listening to warbled a little from the other side of the lake.

Just as you were stepping into the water, it began to rain. It didn’t matter. When you swam on your back, the raindrops on your face felt sweet. Soft. Many mornings you cry a little as you swim because so many things are heavy in your heart but this morning, your cheeks were damp with rain, not tears.

Sometimes. Sometimes. A bird sang deep in the hardhack. A duck flew close to the surface of the lake. Swimming, I was thinking about the book I am reading, Madeleine Thien’s The Book of Records and how one strand of the narrative is Du Fu’s story, his poems coming to life on the page: riding through woods, drinking with friends, lamenting the indignities of age. I was thinking of his poem, “Rain”, and it was as though I was living in the poem,

Roads not yet glistening, rain slight,
Broken clouds darken after thinning away.
Where they drift, purple cliffs blacken.
And beyond — white birds blaze in flight.

It wasn’t white birds but an unseen sparrow in the hardhack, a duck skimming the surface, a loon beyond the island you can see in the photograph. I have longed for things I will never have and haven’t been grateful enough for what is mine. Above me, the clouds were dark over the mountain but there was blue sky in the direction of our house.

Note: the lines of Du Fu were translated by David Hinton.