Last night we camped by a waterfall. Even at midnight you could see it, a pale blue ribbon laced between moon-painted firs. All night we heard its gentle pouring, which by morning had become as smooth to our ears as the lap of the sea.
Around the fire, we told stories about the beginning. How the moon ran into the Earth and brought water to our planet, all those billions of years ago. It seemed fitting for the blue night, and the points of starlight sewn through fir needles, and the moon, a liquid shadow behind their black silhouettes.
Today we walked on paths lined with red huckleberry and salal. The creek guided us, its murmuring as soft as the songs of crickets. In some places the water deepened into turquoise pools, and in others it rushed over stones, quick and clear and clean.
We waded below Chinook Falls, where the water was cold as glacial melt, and then ventured uphill, where the hemlocks billowed, dancing the dance of woodfire smoke.
And now we’re camped by the creek. At the bend, the sunlight fades down in long streaks–the way light gets caught up in spiderwebs–and the trees hold long onto it, as the gnats make great star-streaks upon the water, their whole lives golden lines, and small pools, and smooth rocks, and alder leaves floating down the current.
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