A solitary autumn leaf rustles on a tree.Slowly, gracefully it floats down, twirling,silently meeting the dense dappled shimmerof still water.

Overhead, distant vees of geese appear.Their faint raucous cries float on a soft breeze.Sticks weave around rocks to formwarm tables where turtles sunbathe languidlyDragonflies swoop and hover like sylphsadmiring their likenesses in the mirroring water.Lithe water striders skate across the skin of the canal.Schools of sinuous minnows flit like brown shadowsbelow. Salamanders crawl over the slippery logssubmerged under thick algae and creep away

The green lacewings buzz perpetually among the reeds.Swamp roses clustered by the banksway delicately in clumps of switchgrass.Mingled jewelweed and loosestrife nod to passersbyPeople fish, jog, ride bicycles,alone or in couples or in families.

I trudge on the dusty path pasta child casting a line into the hazy water.He pulls a fish flipping and gasping from the murky depths.The child’s father congratulates him,and the fish’s lifeslips away

Soda cans, rusty metal shards, plastic bottles, old tiresare strewn among the brambles.The transfixing image doubles itself on the water,distorted here and there by a dead branch hovering lowor a grimy plastic bag caught in weeds at the water’s edge.

The placid mirror reflects it all.The river flows on, around snarls of fallen treestrailing skeletal gray fingers in the water.Two boys doubling on a single bike, one on the handlebars,ride by me. Their heads swivel to stare.They mutter something harsh.Cars judder over the looming bridgelike distant thunder.