My focus is interrupted by a visitor. A wiley and mischeivous insect, six legs, a slender body, antennae. She lands just inches from my left hand (she's about the size of my thumbnail bed) and observes the river with me. I stop to watch and she seems to notice my intrigue. Dramatically, even theatrically, she rubs her front legs together slowly as if plotting her next move. The fine hairs on her legs scratch like stubble. Then, with a quick and precisely articulated movement she lifts off and zips downstream into the afternoon glare on the river. I lift up, too, and find a slightly different perch, pulling my legs closer to my body and settling my bare feet into the rocks and small pebbles of the creek. As I lean back a hand lightly brushes my neck where my pigtails are pulled away. The fingers belong to a mass of foliage with arching, lanky copper stems topped with flat green phalanges. If I were ever to learn the names of these riverside plants, I think I would do best to memorize their silhouettes.
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