Potter County Hollows

A day after school let out, I found myself rambling up hollows of Potter County. 

It is here, where rock tightens its grip to water, that everything grows more full. 

Color, life, sound, smell, the way deadwood lays across rock - patterns stitched by the quick wind that slices down these drafts. 

Patterns of the elders

It is a good way to start the summer - sitting on the tailgate with mountains in the windows, looking at maps, tracing hyphenated courses and blue lines, waiting for the sulfurs to hatch. One night, after we caught brook trout on little bright yellow flies, I made burritos. We sat around the fire and ate them. The thin moon showed us the movement of night. The next morning we sat on the porch and drank coffee for a few hours, watching the valley and the clouds slowly shake by. During the day we bushwhacked through thick brush and found plunge pools. The long thin red marks across my shins, those are good scars, tattoos of exploring.