Speak, Water

In our beginning, water. We followed the Genesee River north, veered east along the southern shore of Lake Ontario and climbed northeast through a land serrated with conifers and brindled with tannic brooks—the small and outdated engine threatening to overheat as the altitude rose—and finally reached our honeymoon location in the Adirondack Mountains. Margaret and I hiked and camped along the Oswegatchie River for most of a week. We left the river only to follow a tributary upstream, failing to find the source without going too far out of our way, pausing to drink on our hands and knees, frightening trout into the jagged shadows of boughs. One night we stayed up late on the riverbank, where in the tumult of a nearby falls I heard words. None were the word that I had hoped to hear.

I settled for our human words. We went to the Adirondacks to begin in the wild and because, in our feral love, we would have each other forever; that was the story we told ourselves.

Where we live in southwestern New York, a