Down By the Riverside

Down by the riverside, not caring nor by pangs of conscience deterred, despite the reverberant lessons of eons past in which it was learned that careless or malevolent disregard of the fundamental nature of things leads inevitably to decline and decay, we watch the flotsam and jetsam of the ages flow by like the insinuating determination of a million mighty boll weevils pillaging the cotton fields.

How soon the lessons of the past are forgotten, how soon comes a lazy moth fluttering lightward, growing more animated as it draws near to the attractive magnet of illumination representing both ultimate purpose and ultimate futility, blazing fulfillment simultaneous with screaming annihilation visited upon the creature in equally total measures.

The point taken, suddenly the mood is altered, for as we stare in awe comes gently floating down the stream a little leaf fashioned as a boat by some strange mariner insect earnestly piloting his delicate craft, purposeful yet benign, efficient yet leisurely, moving toward some goal of which we can fathom but a glimmer of a hint buried deep within an ancient racial memory.

In the middle foreground gnats swarm in the manner of a vague thought not quite able to coalesce, surrounding us the spore-bearing breeze curls caressingly around each small flower and blade of grass, and here we are, in the present, the now, down by the riverside watching the flotsam and jetsam of the ages flow by like the insinuating determination of a million mighty boll weevils pillaging the cotton fields not caring nor by pangs of conscience deterred.