Ruminating Red
- Marco Maynard
- Mar 4
- 3 min read
There were rumination’s that liked to linger outside the warming glow of the town’s old hotel, watching intently through fogging windows as diffidence poured into pints of frothy chocolate stout. Across the polished bar top, a cherry stained mantle gave tenant to glass painting broken reflections through shelves of shimmering liquors, and the pop of pine and oak smoked under stone at the hearth, breathing comfort that soothed better than bourbon.
I might’ve thought December was cold otherwise, but the of candid chatter of goodwill left me sauntering reflections at a lake high in the alpine.
“You know...he had em' prepare his ol' plot at the cemetery don't yuh?”, a rusty voice rippled through my vivid escape in the wild.
“I heard the rumors he was ill. He sure done a whole lot for the community.” Old Joe spatted back in affirmation from the teetering stool next to me.
I didn’t know the man they spoke about, but the conversation stopped me at the shore of the lake, and instead of listening to birds, I was drug back out to sea in the saloon, where doubt again confronted me. Wherever I went these days, assurance seemed to be so very far behind, and in its place, wishful thinking hovered in high victorian ceilings while resentment stood in unavoidable corridors, waiting in forbearance to bury my remaining fortitude.
I could hear Old Joe continue to grumble on about the gossip of community matters, he rather liked to talk, and often distracted me in my attempts to return to the lake, staring imminently at the pensive foamy remanence in my pint.
The idle of clanking glasses and rising conversation left me again to feel the laced grasses and limber soil of a watery edge, where granite tiers shrouded light for resting snags who’d finally bedded after long stands. It was a good place for sitting, and there I could listen to the tick of time with unexpected company.
A stir of the surface twisted delicate silence, emerging the curious, piercing dark stares. Their sleek undulations bending waters tension with boisterous dance. Spouts of breathy exhales punched at the surface - rousing the buoyancy of Kaya's equanimity. His ears rolling forward, rising to sit and returning the trace. There was a spell of reticent exchange between them, reciprocating scent and stature. Magicians knew little of this magic, mystic and rare, there was only us to know this moment. I fumbled for the looking glass holstered on my bag, peering through a closer look.
I'd never seen river otters this high in the mountains before, a pair of them, only a pair. The sun rested it's starry reaches through hardy lodgepole's grazing their ubiquitous forms.
“Would yuh like another, dear?….sir?”
“Oh, errr, sorry…no thank you…." fluttering my focus back to the barkeep, her face puzzled by the void in my presence.
I thought Old Joe's glass might be deeper than he expected, because when I turned to leave he was still ranting away whimsically in the shallow pools of his social affairs.
I left the hotel absorbed in the relic's of wild places, convoluted by my feelings of disquietude and interpretations of seraphic imparting. Home, as it turns out, was still rich in equity that provided contentment. I wanted to know more, but the burdens I'd carried south with me were less inquisitive, so I made my bed for the evening.
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