Just rambling thoughts about my favorite trout stream.

Untitled Ellie rested on her way at a mountain flow to watch and envy the clarity, the harmony, the charm of changeless grace within ever renewing purity— running and leaping and singing of freedom Ellie had never known. Oh, to live and love the wildwood calm, to lie upon the ferns of peace that border an eternity of crystal enchantment cascading beneath a bower of oaks and pines within dappled sunlight reaching toward the tranquil depths. How gladly she would exchange her cloak of muddied duty to follow the stream, perhaps merging with warmer tributaries, to embolden and enrich both the water and herself. But no, she must hurry homeward to chores yet done today and tomorrow and ever. Ellie crossed, the disturbance scattering trout and dragonfly. The flow recovered and continued. It had done so eternally. Unlike Ellie. The rocks and pools of her unsettled past were neither smooth nor shallow. Her end unseen but certain. She would weaken and perish, and in her death-dreams remember the mountain flow. M. Gibbs