Passing over the freeway, traffic is loud, which means it is fast, which means rush hour has passed. Six lanes of hearses sweep autumn’s leaves to the shoulder and swale. I let the sounds of Death’s robes fade behind and climb a low hill up to Mock’s Crest. Not sure whether that’s someone’s name or the crest’s authenticity is in doubt.
From the overlook, past and future flitches stack around a rail yard wide with tracks and wood. Mechanical elbows lift pallets of decked and canted lumber onto train cars, each car loaded with last week’s mill work, a trailing average of centuries of chlorophyl-fed cambium rings, of annual rainfall and sunbeams from the south inscribed in xylem. A forklift applies each ring’s written record to a centerbeam rail car and readies tomorrow’s departure east. The illiterate river rises, and the sun never reads the text it made possible.
I return to the west side of the river by Broadway and the emotional safety of the 7% grade going up and the shade cast by trees still feeding on sunlight.
Strava segment – Interstate hill spring (light to light)